Seeing The World As A Prodigy

A short documentary profiles Victoria and Zoe Yin, sisters who are both art prodigies:

Scott Barry Kaufman describes research that “investigated the cognitive profiles of 18 prodigies,” a sample set consisting of eight music prodigies, five math prodigies, and five art prodigies:

In terms of total IQ score, math and music prodigies had a significantly higher total IQ score than the art prodigies:

Math Prodigies: Average IQ= 140; Range= 134-147

Music Prodigies: Average IQ=129; Range=108-142

Art Prodigies: Average IQ= 108; Range=100-116

The math and music prodigies scored higher than the art prodigies on tests of general cultural knowledge, vocabulary, quantitative reasoning, and visual spatial ability. Surprisingly, the art prodigies displayed below average visual spatial skills (average visual spatial IQ = 88; Range=82-94). This finding suggests that the kind of mental visualization skills tested on IQ tests does not adequately capture artistic talent.

As a possible explanation, [psychologist Joanne] Ruthsatz and colleagues discuss research suggesting the key role of attention in the development of artistic talent. Artistically talented children tend to actively focus on the forms, shapes, and detailed surface features of their environments. As a result, the visual information around them is better and more selectively encoded, and they are able to remember those details while drawing. This skill may be at odds with the visual spatial skills tested on IQ tests, which highlight categories, concepts, and holistic perception at the expense of detailed-oriented perception. Consistent with this account, one of the art prodigies explained to the researchers that she uses her extraordinary memory to conjure images in her mind while painting. She remembers such details as how shadows fall on an object and is able to paint the entire scene from memory building up from those details.