Study links intelligence and chess skill

Hot of the presses!  I personally don't yet have an opinion about the article's merits, but it's definitely worth a look.  Please don't quote the entire article when replying. -- Leo

Source:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-links-intelligence-chess-skill.html

Study links intelligence and chess skill

September 13, 2016 by Zach Hambrick , Alexander Burgoyne , Andy Henion

Michigan State University psychology professor Zach Hambrick, left, and graduate student Alexander Burgoyne discuss their findings that chess skill is related to intelligence. Credit: Michigan State University
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.

"When it comes to expertise, training and practice certainly are a piece of the puzzle," said Hambrick, MSU professor of psychology. "But this study shows that, for chess at least, intelligence is another piece of the puzzle."

For the in-depth study, known as a meta-analysis, the researchers considered nearly 2,300 scholarly articles on chess skill, looking specifically for studies that included a measure of cognitive ability (such as IQ score) and objective chess skill (such as the Elo rating, which ranks players based on game performance). The final sample included 19 studies with about 1,800 total participants.

The meta-analysis represents the first attempt by researchers to systematically investigate the best available scientific evidence for the link between intellect and chess skill, said Burgoyne, a graduate student in the Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience program at MSU.

The study found that intelligence was linked to chess skill for the overall sample, but particularly among young chess players and those at lower levels of skill. This may be because the upper-level players represent a winnowed distribution of cognitive ability - in other words, they all tend to be fairly bright. (By way of comparison, Burgoyne said, consider the world's best basketball players. Although there is essentially no correlation between height and points scored at that level, that doesn't mean height isn't important in basketball.)

Hambrick offered another potential explanation. "Imagine that a genius can become a skilled chess player relatively easily, whereas a person with average intelligence may take longer. So the idea is, as you practice more and develop more skills and knowledge about the game, you may be able to circumvent limitations in cognitive ability." This might be true for chess, he added, but not for all activities. In an earlier study, Hambrick and a colleague found that working memory, a cognitive ability related to general intelligence, predicted success in sight-reading music even among highly practiced pianists.

I work with a guy that has a photographic memory, has a PhD, and cant play chess worth a lick.

ok. here is the gimmy Coach leo

ALREADY we are Beseiged by "HOW MUCH  OF A GENIUS" does it take to be a GM?!

Now, you offer proof that Intelligence and chess skill are linked.

There is NO GOOD OUTCOME of this thread!

I think that even the authors of the article would not claim that higher intelligence (by whatever measure) necessarily leads to superior chess skill.  Most people would probably agree that effective coaching, physical health, and available study time must be important factors too.

none of this ofc conflicts exactly.

the study was meticulous to point out this was a study in correlation not Causation. (I've done some statistics so I'm familiar with the issue)

the problem is that the Non-scientific public will immediately make inferences that are demonstrably wrong.

GENIUS DOESN'T GIVE PEOPLE EXCEPTIONAL CHESS SKILL.  and People with Exceptional Chess skills may NOT be Genius's.

I am SURE this will NOT be understood by some people that are reading this study....

Seems pretty clear to me :-)

not implying any certain person.

FWIW, the report is pretty straightforward.  but we have SO MUCH arguments in the forum about how much "IQ it takes to be a gm ",etc.

PlayChessPoorly wrote:

Didn't someone post a link to another study that said the opposite recently?

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Yes

This is a pretty stupid study. Of course people who are high performing at other related things would tend to be better at chess, that's so obvious it goes without saying. It's like do people with exceptional memory ability have a better ability to learn languages... of course they do on average, if only because of their good memories.  

People will mix this up in their heads to think it means something it does not. They will think that playing chess will cause you to become intelligent, or that people who are good at chess must be more intelligent because of this study, or that people who fail to become good at chess are dumb. 

The ditches are littered with genius' that do not reach their potential. High IQ means nothing without hard work, training, guidance, etc etc.

It's so difficult to convincingly "prove" anything having to do with human intelligence.  First of all, it seems reasonable that there are different types of intelligence (which type did the researchers measure?).  Secondly, how confidently can we accurately measure intelligence when we struggle to define it?  Lastly (but I'm sure there must be other objections), since the original studies themselves suffer from poorly quantified statistical error, the author's meta-study might actually magnify the overall statistical error.  Unlike in many purely physical systems (for instance noise-cancellation in MRI), the errors are not evenly distributed in random directions, so summing them up does not necessarily cancel them out.

I don't reject the study outright because of these valid concerns, but as a scientist I try to maintain a skeptical stance towards all profound claims about us wonderfully complex human beings.  In the long run (if humankind doesn't abandon the scientific method), evidence will accumulate and reveal the truth with increasingly higher degrees of certainty.

Yes, thank you, I forgot to mention motivation as a factor.  Yesterday I spoke with a customer representative at an academic tutoring company, and she stressed this exact point.  Many bright students get into academic trouble because knowing (or having been informed) about their above average aptitude, become over-confident, procrastinate, and get into severe time-trouble.

I have a thought for what it's worth. Shine me off anytime. As for the subject, I have found chess to be an option to mental abilities. It does have it's complimentary attributes to enhance a (and when I say a, it equates to a mental tool that can be useful) different way of looking at situations. For example....."Take a helicopter Pilot, situation is 60% fuel left and they are out on a mission to save lives. One pilot see's the cluster assembly of gauges and dials and switches. The other pilot see's the same thing. One pilot says fuel is low we need to head back from what I see on the gauges and other says NO! We will Continue, as long as we can and we can to try and save lives" It's a call. Some people can see all the angles and others cant. What I'm trying to say is that chess is nothing more but another avenue to see your thought process. LOL, I probably blunder more than anyone here on this site. But Chess is what some of us need or none of you would of posted...............Deano

Well, he probably doesn't take the game too seriously. Also, are you sure his accomplishments were derived from his natural talent or hard work?

I would say he is good at what he does, Chess is just not his way of showing it.

Growing up one of my best friends was a musical genius. He wasn't just smart in music however. He actually became a professional musician when he was 11. He was in school competitions that were on tv. He could play any instrument you put in his hand, except some wind instruments.

His favorite was the electric guitar. He could play any song you wanted him to. Country, classical, rock, or pop. He was one of my friends that I never actually had to teach to play chess. However he could never beat me at chess. As a matter of fact he got upset one game and wiped all the pieces off the board, and he said there you can't beat me now. I just calmly picked up the pieces, and put them back in their positions. He then said that wasn't the position, and I said yeah it was, and that his position actually wasn't as bad as he thought it was, he sat back down, and we continued to play.

However compared to math, science and some other areas, he was a mental giant compared to me. His younger brother did one of the 1st early computer programs, and actually won a few NASA scholarships in the 9th grade, this was before PC's were available. He wasn't the only genius friend I knew either.

Actually, the response was underwhelming.  But is it really surprising that above-average intelligence is conducive (if accompanied by other positive factors) to above-average chess skill?  What is controversial is the reverse correlation -- the idea that chess practice enhances general intelligence.

This is what the summary of the actual paper says

"Why are some people more skilled in complex domains than other people? Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between cognitive ability and skill in chess. Chess skill correlated positively and significantly with fluid reasoning (Gf) (r− = 0.24), comprehension-knowledge (Gc) (r− = 0.22), short-term memory (Gsm) (r− = 0.25), and processing speed (Gs) (r− = 0.24); the meta-analytic average of the correlations was (r− = 0.24). Moreover, the correlation between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age (r− = 0.32 for youth samples vs. r− = 0.11 for adult samples), and skill level (r− = 0.32 for unranked samples vs. r− = 0.14 for ranked samples). Interestingly, chess skill correlated more strongly with numerical ability (r− = 0.35) than with verbal ability (r− = 0.19) or visuospatial ability (r− = 0.13). The results suggest that cognitive ability contributes meaningfully to individual differences in chess skill, particularly in young chess players and/or at lower levels of skill."

I suspect chess players would be unsurprised to learn that a good short term memory and speed at processing are helpful in chess.

It is also rather unsurprising that the correlations between whatever the authors' sources tried to measure were stronger for younger and less skilled players.  As the years pass volume of experience and any teaching obtained will obviously come to outweigh basic mental attributes.

I see the paper was written after analysis of other people's studies.  So there will have been a range of methodologies.

Intelligence has always struck me as an empty word, it covers far too many completely disparate things.  But if I did have more faith in it I don't think this paper comes anywhere near justifying the strap line.

johnyoudell wrote:

"Intelligence has always struck me as an empty word, it covers far too many completely disparate things."

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This is a very intelligent thought. It is more beneficial to be intelligent than dumb as rocks.