Reading Quest 1

The first thing that caught my attention while reading the first half of How We Decide was the story of Elliot. I wanted to learn more about how a single surgery could affect one man’s life so drastically, so I did some research. I first did what any self respecting person today does: I googled it. While researching, I came across a website which discussed Elliot and the doctor who studied him, Antonio Damasio. As stated in the website, “Testing of Eliot and others with similar frontal lobe damage has suggested chronic difficulties in producing or becoming aware of somatic states. Necessary messages about the body, from which we derive our feelings, fail to transmit or transmit unreliably, thereby skewing the “planning and deciding” behaviors which are the foundation of the personal and social realm” (p.1). Through further online research, I also learned that there are many other characteristics associated with frontal lobe damage, such as loss of basic motor functions and, depending on the location of the damage, a lessening or increase in speech. Another thing I found interesting and found myself questioning, was how the IQ of the patients was not affected. I discovered that the reason for this was because IQ tests typically asses convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking, which is what is affected during frontal lobe damage. Although the book was very informative as to the cause and effect of frontal lobe damage, I now feel I have a greater understanding than I did before thanks to the online research I did.

Sourced cited:
Autism National Commitee, http://www.autcom.org/articles/HowToThink.html

Antonio Damasio:

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