Talk:The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Insight into Propaganda?
In the section detailing the essay "The President's Speech", there is the following statement: "This essay gives insight into techniques of propaganda." This needs a citation. I did an admittedly cursory search, and was unable to find any good reference to accompany this statement. The only other reference to this observation I found in my brief search was in this article pubished in The Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0423,carson,54137,1.html. It states:

"in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks tells a remarkable story about watching a presidential speech in a roomful of people with severe aphasia, a condition that impairs or destroys understanding of verbal content but leaves its victims preternaturally alert to the authenticity of facial expressions, mannerisms, and tone. Every solemn, ringingly earnest sentence out of Reagan's mouth had the patients rolling on the floor laughing."

In fact, the wikipedia entries for the two disorders described here (aphasiacs and agnosiacs) make no mention of any "preternatural" ability to determine sincerity.

I have not read the essay in question (anyone know if it is available online?), and therefore do not know if this was indeed Oliver Sacks' conclusion (regarding propaganda). Unless someone knows of a solid reference for this assertion, I see two possible alterations here:

1) If indeed Mr Sacks believed, rightly or not, that the subjects behavior reflected this ability to detect deceit, then this statement should be changed to something like: "Sacks believes his observations give insight into techiques of propaganda"

2) If Mr Sacks did not make any such assertion, then the whole sentence should be removed.

Of course, if there is credible evidence of such abilities in patients who suffer from those disorders, then the sentence should stay as it is. But even then, it should be cited. Messiahxi 02:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

A user named User:Qe2eqe deleted the above and replaced it with:


 * P. 78 : "In this, then, lies their power of understanding - understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus it was the grimaces, the histrionisms, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for these wordless but immensly sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivabble by words. This is why the laughed at the President's speech." Issue resolved. Removing sections.


 * P. 76 : "Regarding the insight to propoganda, Sacks says at least this: "There he was, the old Charmer, the Actor, with his practised rhetoric, his histrionisms, his emotional appeal - and all the patients were convulsed with laughter"


 * This article pubished in The Village Voice states: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0423,carson,54137,1.html


 * "in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks tells a remarkable story about watching a presidential speech in a roomful of people with severe aphasia, a condition that impairs or destroys understanding of verbal content but leaves its victims preternaturally alert to the authenticity of facial expressions, mannerisms, and tone. Every solemn, ringingly earnest sentence out of Reagan's mouth had the patients rolling on the floor laughing."

In any case, I am deleting the sentence in question. --Ogdred 23:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Since the sentence has been deleted, I will delete the category. --Walter Görlitz 06:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Category
Should this be under category neurology? Rex Manning (talk) 05:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Too broad. Perhaps a new category should be created? Sacks' books are categorized in Psychology books, Medicine books, Science books, etc.; most of them would also fit in Neurology books if one was created. Muad (talk) 12:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

He bills himself as a neurologist, for starters, and these are all case studies of people that were brought to a neurologist. F yea, neurology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qe2eqe (talk • contribs) 16:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Rain man
The idea that some autist persons can count a large number of objects instantly have been used also in the movie Rain Man... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.195.91.209 (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Wording
The lede contains the phrase "unable to recognize even familiar faces and objects". But surely an object one can't recognise is by definition not familiar? Should it be "otherwise-familiar" or "everyday"? Or just "unable to recognize faces and objects"? I haven't read the book so I'm unsure. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 22:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, this could be a bit more clear. The faces are not familiar, the people are. I tried to improve it. Laurier (talk) 15:55, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My impression of starting reading the book was that Dr P was familiar with the faces, but was unable to ascertain that they were in front of him. He would search and search and finally find something that matched what he expected.  Xloem (talk) 17:10, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Who's Makoto Yamaguchi?
Books of prime numbers most certainly do exist. How else would you select a suitable prime number when you need one? This person may be somewhat intellectually impaired. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.168.17.209 (talk) 09:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

The Dog Beneath the Skin
After checking (in the right book, in the right edition, and all) the reference number 8 appears to be wrong. So at this time, stating that the writer is the actual protagonist whose story is related in this chapter cannot be proven. If anyone has the correct reference, please do change it. Otherwise the sentence will have to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElPsyCongri (talk • contribs) 11:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Further information on patients and stories
In my edition there is additional text in the section on The Lost Mariner that Oliver Sacks worked further with Dr Elkhonon Goldberg on a further systematic and close neuropsychological study of Jimmie G. (the mariner), that this new work had been presented at conferences and a full account was soon to be published. Does anyone have link to this published further study now? Xloem (talk) 17:15, 10 April 2021 (UTC)