Book Discussion Outline

MusicophiliaOliver Sacks

NAME: Andrea Rosa
RED ID: 811173955

Students will share these questions and comments on the October 23rd in their
Discussion Groups. At the end of the group discussion period, each student will turn
in his/her outline to the discussion leaders. To receive full points on the book
discussion, students will share the comments they have typed below AND turn them
in.


Section 1 (please type 4 questions or comments regarding section 1)

1) Is imagining the music playing in your mind without having to listen to the
actual song because it was heard and played before? Through memory?
2) Why do those with certain damages to the brain result in having
musicophilia? What causes those people to have that, instead of for example,
memory loss, etc.
3) Why do patients who get MRIs and EEGs show nothing wrong with them,
when theyre experiencing these musical differences?
4) Faint music or no music playing at all can still be heard by those who
recognize or know a certain song, can they still have that same effect when an
unfamiliar song plays or an unfamiliar song is mentioned?
5) What causes brainworms? How and why do people get fixated to one specific
song or sound?



Section 2 (please type 4 questions or comments regarding section 2)

1) Although both ears are necessary to hear and have a stereo affect, does
each ear have a different sound waves or different instruments which give
us the reason to hear music and sounds the way we do?
2) Why dont we all have savant talents? (Snyder, Allan and Mitchell, D.J.) (I
want to know this answer as well.)
3) Blind people are better than sighted people because they only have to worry
about listening to the sound with no other visual distractions. They can
figure out pitch better than those who can see.
4) I still dont understand how color and sound correlate. How can you
conclude a certain color goes with a certain sound?




Section 3 (please type 4 questions or comments regarding section 3)

1) Not all accidents are terrible. One can have a change for the better of their
life.
2) Why arent two cases of amnesia ever the same? Are there never two
patients with the same musical disability?
3) Knowing how to do things but cant explain how to do them is a form of
amnesia.
4) Is damage to the temporal lobe the ONLY lobe where these musical
tendencies arise? Can damage to another lobe give the same effect?
5) How are people with aphasia able to sing when they cannot speak on a
regular basis?



Section 4 (please type 4 questions or comments regarding section 4)

1) Would hearing music in your dreams better than when awake be the same as
how blind people can listen to every pitch, and instrument in every sound or
song?
2) Are seizures occurring in patients who have musical dreams?
3) Would these musical dreams be considered nightmares after a while?
4) Having Williams Syndrome sounds like a gift. Why do people with this have
to have surgery or medical help?


Items to review for Musicophilia quiz:

Alvaro PascualLeone
Stereoscopy
Frederic Gougoux, and Robert Zatorre,
Snyder and Mitchell
Brocas and Wernickes area
Perfect pitch
Tone deafness
Brainworms
Seizures
Williams syndrome
H.M.