WHAT day of the week was 19 July 1981? And on what day will we celebrate New
Year in 2022?*. If you can give correct answers in a second or two, you鈥檙e a
calendrical calculator. Most psychologists have assumed this is a 鈥渟avant鈥�
skill鈥攁n island of ability not related to general intelligence. But
researchers in London now have evidence to overturn that theory.
Many calendrical calculators are autistic鈥攊ndividuals who score low in
IQ tests and have trouble relating to other people and communicating with them.
But Neil O鈥機onnor, Richard Cowan and Katerina Samella of the Institute of
Education in London have recruited enough non-autistic calendrical calculators
to investigate the skill鈥檚 link with intelligence.
The researchers linked the accuracy, speed and range of date calculation to
the volunteers鈥� performance on standard IQ tests. Some of the calculators were
97 per cent accurate on dates tens of thousands of years into the future, giving
correct answers in less than two seconds. But there was a definite link between
this ability and IQ. 鈥淎ny relationship between general intelligence and degree
of savant skill is a challenge to the proposal that general intelligence is
irrelevant to savant talent,鈥� says Cowan.
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The researchers also found that IQ scores were related to the volunteer鈥檚
knowledge of patterns and regularities in the calendar. 鈥淔or example, 1 April is
on the same day as 1 July,鈥� says Cowan. 鈥淭here is also the 28-year rule, which
holds across century years which are leap鈥攕o 1999 is the same as 2027,
2055 and 2083.鈥�
The results, which will be published in a future issue of the journal
Intelligence, suggest that anybody could teach themselves the skill. They
add to a growing body of evidence indicating that savant skills aren鈥檛 the
preserve of autistic patients
(快猫短视频, 9 October, p 30).
鈥淎utistic individuals only exhibit skills that are exhibited by some
proportion of the general population,鈥� says Howard Gardner, an expert on
cognitive abilities at Harvard University.
*Sunday and Saturday