Genius locus ②

As she observes, obsessional interests and repetitive behaviours would allow someone to practice, albeit inadvertently, whichever skill they were obsessed by.
64-3-303
Until recently, the feeling among many researchers was that the first two features were crucial to someone becoming a savant. The idea was that mental resources which would have been used for interaction and communication could be redeployed to develop expertise in some arbitrary task. Now, though, that consensus is shifting. Several of the volume's authors argue that it is the third feature, RRBI, that permits people to become savants.
Francesca Happe of King's College, London, is one of them. As she observes, obsessional interests and repetitive behaviours would allow someone to practice, albeit inadvertently, whichever skill they were obsessed by. Malcolm Gladwell, in a book called 'Outliers' which collated research done on outstanding people, suggested that anyone could become an expert in anything by practising for 10,000 hours. It would not be hard for an autistic individual to clock up that level of practice for the sort of skills, such as mathematical puzzles, that many neurotypicals would rapidly give up on.

A. 어휘
feature 특징. crucial 결정적인. savant 대학자. mental 정신적인. resources 자원.
redeploy 이동시키다, 배치하다. expertise 전문기술, 전문지식.
arbitrary 任意(임의)의, 恣意的(자의적)인, 변덕스러운.
consensus 일치된 의견, 總意(총의). shift 변화하다
the volume→Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. cf. volume 책, 권.
author 저자. obsessional 강박적인. repetitive 반복적인. albeit ....이기는 하나.
inadvertently 우연히, 무심코. outlier 局外者(국외자).
collate 照合(조합)하다, 교정하다, 원문과 대조하다. outstanding 傑出(걸출)한.
clock 시간을 재다. puzzle 수수께끼, 難問(난문), 퍼즐.

B. 구문
- The idea was that mental resources . . . in some arbitrary task.
[그 개념은 인간간의 상호작용과 의사소통을 위해 사용될 수 있었던 정신적 자원이 어떤 임의의 일에서 전문기술을 발전시키는 데로 전환배치 될 수 있을 것이라는 것이다.]
- It would not be hard for an autistic . . . would rapidly give up on.
[자폐증환자가 많은 정상인이 빨리 포기하게 되는 수학퍼즐 같은 기술을 위해 그런 수준의 연습에 시간을 투입하는 것은 어려운 일은 아닐 것이다.]

64-4-304
Many, but not all. Dr Happe has drawn on a study of almost 13,000 individual twins to show that childhood talent in fields such as music and art is often associated with RRBIs, even in those who are not diagnosed as classically autistic. She speculates that the abilities of savants in areas that neurotypicals tend to find pointless or boring may result from an ability to see differences where a neurotypical would see only similarities. As she puts it, 'the child with autism who would happily spend hours spinning coins, or watching drops of water fall from his fingers, might be considered a connoisseur, seeing minute differences between events that others regard as pure repetition.'
Simon Baron-Cohen, a doyen of the field who works at Cambridge University, draws similar conclusions. He suggests the secret of becoming a savant is 'hyper-systematising and hyper-attention to detail'. But he adds sensory hypersensitivity to the list. His team have shown one example of this using what is known as the Freiburg visual acuity and contrast test, which asks people to identify the gap in a letter 'c' presented in four different orientations. Those on the autistic spectrum do significantly better at this than do neurotypicals. That might help explain Dr Happe's observations about coins and raindrops.

A. 어휘
draw on 실행하다, 끌어들이다. twin 쌍둥이. diagnose 진단하다.
classically 정통으로, 전통적으로, 고전적으로. speculate 추측하다, 사색하다.
pointless 무의미한. boring 지겨운. neurotypicals 뇌신경의 기능이 정상인 사람.
similarity 類似(유사), 비슷함. put it 표현하다. spin-spun-spun 빙빙 돌리다.
coin 동전. drops of water 물방울. connoisseur 미술 감정가, 전문가.
minute 미세한. doyen 元老(원로). hyper=over 과다한.
hyper-attention to detail 세부사항에 과도하게 주의를 집중하는 것.
sensory 감각의. hypersensitivity 과민증. acuity 예민함, 예리함.
identify 확인하다. letter 글자. orientation 方位(방위).

B. 구문
- “the child with autism who . . . others regard as pure repetition.”
[동전을 빙빙 돌리거나 손가락 끝에서 떨어지는 물방울을 보면서 몇 시간을 즐겁게 보내는 자폐증 아이는 보통 사람들은 순수한 반복현상으로 보는 (사건들 사이에 존재하는) 미세한 차이점을 鑑識(감식)해 내는 감정 전문가로 간주될 수 있을 것이다.]
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