“The Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Chess Skill: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis”, Alexander P. Burgoyne, Giovanni Sala, Fernand Gobet, Brooke N. Macnamara, Guillermo Campitelli, David Z. Hambrick2016-11-01 (IQ, chess psychology)⁠:

• G_f, G_c, G_s-m, and G_s all correlated positively and statistically-significantly with chess skill.

• The relationship between G_f and chess skill was moderated by age and skill level.

• Chess skill correlated positively with numerical, visuospatial, and verbal ability.

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 statistically-significantly with fluid reasoning (G_f) (r̄ = 0.24), comprehension-knowledge (G_c) (r̄= 0.22), short-term memory (G_s-m) (r̄= 0.25), and processing speed (G_s) (r̄= 0.24); the meta-analytic average of the correlations was (r̄= 0.24).

Moreover, the correlation between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age (r̄= 0.32 for youth samples vs. r̄ = 0.11 for adult samples), and skill level (r̄= 0.32 for unranked samples vs. r̄ = 0.14 for ranked samples). Interestingly, chess skill correlated more strongly with numerical ability (r̄= 0.35) than with verbal ability (r̄= 0.19) or visuospatial ability (r̄ = 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.

[Keywords: cognitive ability, intelligence, chess, expertise, meta-analysis]