Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Intelligence
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 21 May 2013
Received in revised form 20 June 2013
Accepted 27 July 2013
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Expertise
Chess
ELO
Expertnovice paradigm
Playing strength
a b s t r a c t
Prominent expertise researchers have repeatedly emphasized that individual differences in
general cognitive abilities, in particular intelligence, do not play any role for the attained level
of expertise in a given domain. This strong claim is opposed with the current body of evidence
on the relevance of intelligence for expert performance in the prototypical expertise domain of
chess. Although the findings are not unequivocal, presumably due to methodological aspects,
several studies employing psychometric tests of intelligence have revealed that expert chess
players display significantly higher intelligence than controls and that their playing strength is
related to their intelligence level. In addition, by using the extended expertnovice paradigm
(comparing experts with novices of different intelligence levels) it has been found that both,
expertise and intelligence impact on the performance in expertise-related tasks. These studies
suggest that expert chess play does not stand in isolation from intelligence and could stimulate
interdisciplinary research on the role of general cognitive abilities in expertise development.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Individual differences in cognitive performance are the
result of the interplay between an individual's cognitive
potential and the exploitation of learning opportunities provided by the environment. The individual's cognitive potential is
typically measured by means of psychometric intelligence tests,
which have been developed and continuously improved since
the beginning of the 20th century (Nisbett et al., 2012). The high
predictive validity for later educational and (though to a lower
degree) vocational success contributed to a meanwhile broad
application of such tests (e.g., Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). More
intelligent individuals are expected to be better able to exploit
learning opportunities and to display a higher probability to
succeed in a cognitive domain of interest.
The importance of intelligence as predictor of cognitive
achievement, however, has been heavily questioned by expertise
researchers (Ericsson, 2005; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Rmer,
0160-2896/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Table 1
Descriptive statistics of the intelligence scores and correlations between
them and the ELO rating in the sample of 90 tournament chess players
described in Grabner et al. (2007).
r
Fluid intelligenced
(IQ scores)
General intelligence
Verbal intelligence
Numerical intelligence
Figural intelligence
Crystallized intelligence
(solution rates in %)
General knowledge
Verbal knowledge
Numerical knowledge
Figural knowledge
Fluid intelligence subscalesd
(IQ scores)
Sentence completiona
Analogiesa
Finding similaritiesa
Arithmetic problemsb
Number seriesb
Arithmetic operatorsb
Figure selectionc
Cube taskc
Matricesc
Min
Max
SD
.35**
.38**
.46**
.02
78.87
72.02
77.78
69.77
144.38
134.09
135.95
140.87
113.53
108.41
116.41
106.14
14.05
13.36
14.15
15.41
.41**
.24*
.45**
.30**
45.65
50.00
25.00
21.43
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
74.93
85.91
70.42
67.54
12.39
12.24
16.28
16.90
.30**
.28**
.30**
.38**
.44**
.39**
.07
.06
.20
78.68
70.36
70.49
81.04
70.76
78.70
66.62
69.92
65.26
131.80
132.05
130.79
136.69
131.92
130.00
134.77
134.44
138.53
106.77
106.56
105.33
114.23
113.27
115.81
105.34
104.86
103.04
12.53
12.74
13.42
15.02
14.79
12.54
14.38
15.26
14.34
Note.
* p b .01; ** p b .01.
a
Verbal subtests.
b
Numerical subtests.
c
Figural subtests.
d
Correlations were computed between raw scores and ELO rating. For
reasons of comparability with other studies the descriptive statistics refer to
standardised IQ scores (M = 100, SD = 15), corrected for age.
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023
Please cite this article as: Grabner, R.H., The role of intelligence for performance in the prototypical expertise domain of chess,
Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.07.023