Accounts of musical ability in idiots-savants have up till now been confined to stressing the astounding musical memory which such persons may possess. The present study investigates compositional and improvisational skills in five idiots-savants. The findings interpreted as indicating that a representational system of musical rules and structures is accessible to persons of low general intelligence, and that such a system may underlie reproductive as well as generative musical capacity.
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Hermelin et al. (1987) studied this question.
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