Concept-free perceptions

Concepts are necessary - especially for socialising.

Concept-free perceptions (draw the image - not what you think is there) are obtained by autistics say psychologists Allan Snyder and D John Mitchell. 1999

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990618/ai_n14229197

“One celebrated case history of Oliver Sacks, the psychologist, involved savant twins who exchanged prime numbers up to 20 digits long - which would challenge a supercomputer. But their truly extraordinary mathematical talent was revealed most strikingly when Sacks dropped a box of matches. As they cascaded to the floor the twins both muttered “111″. Sacks counted the matches and found exactly 111. “How could you count the matches so quickly?” he asked. “We saw them,” was the reply. Just as we’d consciously “see”, say, two or three matches without having to count them, the twins could “see” almost any number at a glance. “

But Niels Birbaumer, the German neurologist whose team recently fitted two paralysed stroke victims with brain-activated communication devices, believes we may all be able to train ourselves to access our unconscious state.