Are chess players mentalists?

Currently there are no brief, self-administered instruments for measuring the degree to which an adult with normal intelligence has the traits associated with the autistic spectrum. In my recent clinical work, I have developed a new instrument to assess this: the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Individuals score in the range 0–50.

Four groups of subjects were assessed: Group 1: 58 adults with Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA); Group 2: 174 randomly selected controls. Group 3: 840 students in Cambridge University; and Group 4: 16 UK Chess Masters.

The adults with AS/HFA had a mean AQ score of 35.8 (SD = 6.5), significantly higher than Group 2 controls (M = 16.4, SD = 6.3). 80% of the adults with AS/HFA scored 32+, versus 2% of controls. Among the controls, men scored slightly but significantly higher than women. No women scored extremely highly (AQ score 34+) whereas 4% of men did so. Twice as many men (40%) as women (21%) scored at intermediate levels (AQ score 20+). Among the AS/HFA group, male and female scores did not differ significantly. The students in Cambridge University did not differ from the randomly selected control group.

Astonishly Group 4 the chess players had a mean AQ score of 45.8 (SD = 7.4).

The only conclusion:  Chess players are mentalists.

Discuss.

Your conclusions are false...your test subjects included "16 Chess Masters"....a group too small to make any general conclusions about anything...never the less... even if you make a conclusion...it cannot be "chess players are mentalists"...it has to be "chess masters are mentalists".

The group of UK Chess Masters willing to have electrodes attached their skulls is unfortunately a small one.  My further research will be pan European.

All chess players are mentalists

My cat palys chess

Therefore my cat is a mentalist.

QED

For those of you who haven't seen some of Derren Brown's work, look him up on youtube -- if only for the chess themed one where he plays a 9 board simul against a lineup that includes several GMs, IMs, and others.

I wanna take a second to say...I've only just finished the first line of the large third paragraph and I'm already laughing really hard. 

Derren Brown was my flat-mate at Uni.  He only developed those psych tricks to avoid the beatings that are inevitable if you choose to wear a goatee and are of the ginger hue. 

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cheeze

traits to autism, well that might be true for chess.
But would it be wrong, or good ?

For example it is known that a lot of people with asperger syndrome, are good as engineers, in various fields. They often can think more visually or better complex structural. You might even start to wonder why evolution never ruled out autism, why does it keep comming back. It might be that the way we develop, is verry close to autism.
Most people like to live structured, but are chaotic.

The culture we create is heavily organized, and there where there are problems people who can think without distraction might have an advantage.
There are levels at which autism becomes problematic, people who can not look after themselves for example. So i assume that our evolution is trying to balance it.

But just for the record a mentalist is something completly different.
Uri Geller is a mentalist, (or to others a hoax), people with autism threats are can be more close to "idiot" savants like Kim Peek , (think of the movie rainman). Most people with recognized autism however dont perform well in our culture. They dont observe the world like we do.
They cannot filter or see order in things like we do, instead they find different structures in all their sensations, not always practical (and they often dont like it neither to much sensations to handle), their mind goes wild on it, where we would have simply ignored to much input..

You know its all about input and to be able to handle it.
I had once an accident, after it my brain cannt handle to much inputs.
Its the same for people with stress. I use chess actually to push up my stress levels, and to improve my thinking (did soduko before).
One starts to learn a lot about ones brain after an accident.

evolution hasn't ruled out Progeria...and it keeps coming back.  Is that good?

I read that Kasparov believes the single greatest attribute required to become a great chess player is the ability to concentrate. Maybe some of the traits associated with the autistic spectrum would include those that indicate an aptitude for concentration.   

Did he say that?  Because that would explain a lot.

No surprise about Cambridge students

 I tend to agree with this. My sister and I have always had the same IQ, but she greatly supassed me in academic achievement due to her ability to sit down and concentrate for hours on problem solving and memorization.

Reshevsky, Morphy and Fisher possessed the same ability,  and were able go far in chess despite neglecting the study of openings (although Fischer did eventually apply himself to their analysis).

i dont think you should compare chess players to bobyfisher or kasparof.
There has been a documentairy on TV about the polgar sisters, a study of their brain (brain  scanning) showed that their brain realy thinks different then well 99% of the people here. This seams to count for all top players.

The part which "normal" people use for face recognition, had evolved to also recognize positions (and they where learned thousends  of them) in fact most moves didnt require them to think at all,  this recognition part had stored the answers moves to the move. Faster then blinking the eye this part gave the next move. (they can play extreme fast)

Also they can easily remember a chess board because of their structure recognition. However if they where tested to remember a complete random board, they couldnt remember it. (random is illigal non logical positions etc).

the polgar sisters have besides this quite normal brain development.

So spoon bending is not in their abilities :)

i think some chess players are mentalists

Nah Fischer was extremely well prepared in the openings, and Morphy was very well prepared for his time as well. The stereotype of 'raw talents' has no connection to reality. Players who perhaps did not devote so much time to openings study would have been Capablanca and Spassky, but then they studied other aspects of the game. (Spassky did indeed somewhat neglect study in his later years, and his results showed it.)

That explains a lot

So are you saying all good chess players are basically autistic? (def. complete self-absorption and a reduced ability to respond to or communicate with the outside world). I suppose that fits, but of course to different degrees with different individuals, as per your 0-50 scale.

How do you define 'mentalism'?