Visuo-spatial abilities in chess players

Abstract

The extent to which the acquisition of expertise in knowledge-rich domains, such as chess, can be influenced by general individual characteristics, such as intelligence, has remained unclear. Some previous studies with children have documented significant correlations between chess skill and performance on some psychometric tests, such as performance IQ (Frydman & Lynn, 1992). However, we found no evidence for a correlation between chess skill and visual memory ability in a group of adult chess players (n=36, age = 28.4). This finding, together with other data in the literature, suggests that there is surprisingly little evidence that chess skill and visuo-spatial ability are associated in adults. Thus, visual memory ability, and perhaps visuo-spatial intelligence, may be relatively unimportant factors in the long-term acquisition of chess skill.