Intelligence – and not just relentless practice – plays a significant role in determining chess skill, indicates a comprehensive new study led by Michigan State University researchers.
The research provides some of the most conclusive evidence to date that cognitive ability is linked to skilled performance – a hotly debated issue in psychology for decades – and refutes theories that expertise is based solely on intensive training.
Chess is probably the single most studied domain in research on expertise, yet the evidence for the relationship between chess skill and cognitive ability is mixed,” said MSU’s Alexander Burgoyne, lead author on the study. “We analyzed a half-century worth of research on intelligence and chess skill and found that cognitive ability contributes meaningfully to individual differences in chess skill.”
The findings, reported online in the journal Intelligence, come out of Zach Hambrick’s Expertise Lab at MSU, which examines the origins of skill in domains such as chess, music and sports.
PR:http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/study-links-intelligence-and-chess-skill/
Journal article:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616301593
Image:
Chess prodigy Samuel Reshevsky, aged 8, defeating several chess masters in France.
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