THE INTELLIGENCE OF CALENDRICAL CALCULATORS

Strategies of 4 men (WAIS-R range 65 to 76) when making calendar calcu lations were investigated. Each subject completed a battery of standar dized psychological tests. Results suggested that subjects were aware of rules and regularities associated with the calendar, including know ledge of the 14 different calendar templates, one of which describes a ny calendar year. Their strategies were rigidly applied and could not be modified easily, even when doing so would have facilitated performa nce. The involvement of practice, memory, anchor dates, eidetic imager y, and mathematical algorithms were discussed. We concluded that these savants relied heavily on memory, with little manipulation of cogniti ve input, as opposed to transforming stimuli.