Hi, slightly straying from my other posts, I’m taking a cognitive psychologically class. As you the reader know, I have a speech disorder involving my brain, ad this class relates to that (Broca’s area among other things) and my major is psychology. For this class I had to choose a book to read, so I picked “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales” because I’m familiar with some of the content mentioned, such as retrograde amnesia, therefore I understood the content well, in my opinion. After reading about familiar cases as well as learning about others, I have grown a personal interest in the topic, seeing a real life case of the “Memento” movie in the book, and witnessing other stories of things of the brain I have learned about, such as not being able to recognize others.
The author, Oliver Sacks, has the qualification of M.D. and was a physician and a professor in neurology at New York University. According to his website, he has also published “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain and An Anthropologist on Mars” and “Awakening,” but in the book I read, he took notes from previous patients he has witnessed, and has made it clear of his experience, in addition with explaining his jargon and giving clear explanations with diagnosis.
In the book, each chapter is a clinical case Oliver Sacks had witnessed or heard of. From what I noticed, the main ideas were split into four sections: losses, excesses, transports, and the world of the simple. Each section focused on something unique dealing with the brain, such as senses, loss of controlling movement, injury to the brain creating distress in another part of it, and savants who have mental issues.
In my opinion, a book affects each reader differently, and for me it gave me a closer in depth look at how doctors figure out issues that cannot physically be seen, but only studied with hints. I feel like a purpose of the book was to show how brain issues are determined, found, fixed, but how it will always affect the person with it, and how everyone deals with the discovery.
It personally gave me a more in depth and personal look at brain issues, and how it never leaves a person, and how even the most unaware are somehow still aware, more or less (to me, the man who fell out of bed could be debatable with how aware he was, I was slightly confused on how he and the others concluded his “corpse” leg issue). I believe the main purpose of the book was to show how it never leaves a person, how people deal with what they can’t control, and perhaps even how unpredictable the brain can be with senses.
The book focuses on how the brain can affect a person in different ways, how the brain’s neurology can be unpredictable. It glosses over retrograde amnesia, involuntary actions, cause and affects in the brain, and patients with mental issues who excel in certain fields. For me, the book adds to previous knowledge, explaining how certain things work rather than just only giving an example. For example, I had known about how the body (hands specifically) could move without a person being aware, but the book gives a better understanding of the concept, as well as for many other things. For things I wasn’t as familiar with or had no previous knowledge that I could remember, it was an excellent teacher, so in that case it theoretically gave me new ground in cognitive psychology or neuro psychology for me. In addition, Sacks approaches the topic well, in an understanding tone that does not belittle the audition or the patient, and explains how they studied and came to conclusions, and to me what he said was sound, logical. The readability was a bit skewed in some places, such as overly wordy, but it was an easy read besides that. While I was reading, I was reminded of a few lessons, but the most prominent was the different angles of a dog or object, and how it distorts the imagery and knowledge of what it is. Although it wasn’t exactly like the man who mistook his wife for a hat, the lesson helped me understand the concept a bit more, it was a nice clarity. Lastly, in my eyes, the intended audience could be anyone, but was most likely toward medical or cognitive, or even normal neuroscience or psychology students.
I actually had a really nice time reading the book. I thought I would be bored in all honestly, but I found myself interested and making connections to cases or examples I had previously known about. My assumptions weren’t exactly changed on the subject of cognitive psychology or neuroscience, but I felt more taught in the subject, more enforced and corrected with information I had previously learned. For example, although I can’t quite recall the exact term, there-as I’d like to explain it-a disconnection between seeing something and comprehending it. For example, seeing a picture of a family member, but not recognizing their face, only being able to know them by a hair style or facial feature, such as freckles or a long nose. This in a more extreme fashion was in the book, also the featured title, and it was further proven with the description of the man being able to recognize shapes and colors, but not being able to comprehend what it was. In regards with my behavior, I think it has further emphasized my choosing of dispositions, that I should lean on situational disposition and be more opened to if people act in interesting manners. After taking an introduction to social psychology, I learned of two different dispositions, how you perceive someone in a way of explaining, and chose to focus more so on situational as it is more likely for how a person acts, and this further emphasized my decision, and may have made it more permanent. Lastly, I will definitely be sharing this book, I found it extremely interesting and anyone interested in psychology or neuroscience I’m sure will find it a good read as well because of the real situations that it gives.
Sacks, O. W. (2015). The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat And Other Clinical Tales. London: Picador.
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