Devi's MS shows hardly any slope, differing from the mean slope of the student group by 1.1 SD. Ordinarily, a very small slope in the MS paradigm would indicate a quite fast speed of memory search. But the very large intercept for Devi as well as her rather average RTs on all the other processing tasks suggests that her exceptionally low slope on MS is not due to unusually fast memory search but to some exceptional way of mentally representing the string of digits, made possible by Devi's vast knowledge of numbers.

Task

VS

MS Devi

8.3

2.4 Students

6.4

6.3 Older Adults

2

4

Devi's very low error rate on MS also suggests that her encoding of the digit series in STM is probably better than the average in the two comparison groups. This is consistent with her superior performance on forward digit span, which also probably reflects her phenomenal knowledge of numbers.

DISCUSSION

From the conversation with Devi after the test session, I was impressed that she is a remarkable person, even aside from her phenomenal ability with numbers. Devi never attended school and has had no formal education, having been a stage performer since the age at which most children begin kindergarten. She has been self-supporting since childhood, has traveled all over the world on her own beginning in early adolescence, has written several books in English published by major firms, and is putting her daughter through college in England. And she has done it all by her wits and character. Moreover, it was apparent in our conversation that she has acquired a wealth of worldly knowledge and wisdom, and perhaps a certain shrewdness, that are far from ordinary.