The crew spent a lot of time making this film. The filming was done at various locations in New York as well as Budapest, Hungary. It will include some never been seen data, information and special effects, etc. It is a project by National Geographic. I was told that it will be shown in England first. Then it will be shown worldwide.
My Brilliant Brain [No, I didn’t choose this title 🙂 ]
Monday July 16
21.00–22.00
Exploring the incredible inner workings of the human brain, this compelling three-part documentary series looks at a group of remarkable people and poses questions about the origins of genius: are these extraordinary abilities genetic, developed or acquired by accident? This episode focuses on Susan Polgar, the first female chess grandmaster, whose incredible story suggests that genius does not always have to be innate, but can be taught.
At 38 years old, Susan Polgar has reached heights that few women have ever equalled in the chess world. Despite the common assumption that men’s brains are better at understanding spatial relationships, giving them an advantage in games such as chess, Susan went on to become the world’s first grandmaster. Susan’s remarkable abilities have earned her the label of ‘genius’, but her psychologist father, László Polgar, believed that genius was “not born, but made”. Noting that even Mozart received tutelage from his father at a very early age, Polgar set about teaching chess to the five-year-old Susan after she happened upon a chess set in their home. “My father believed that the potential of children was not used optimally,” says Susan.
Throughout the rest of her childhood, Susan practised for hours, memorising thousands of moves and scenarios, and devouring books and stratagems. She took on the men in her local chess club at the age of five and began beating them. By the age of 15, she was the best female player in the world. A year later in 1985, she sensationally vanquished a male grandmaster for the first time. But Susan is not the only family member to achieve such incredible success – her younger sisters Judit and Zsófia are grandmaster and international master respectively, thanks to similar schooling from their father.
…It is this lightning-quick instinct, coupled with a phenomenal memory and years of relentless practice, that have earned Susan the status of ‘genius’. Her story presents strong evidence to suggest that her father was right – genius may indeed be nurture over nature. “I really believe that if you put your mind to it,” reflects Susan, “you can achieve it, whatever it is”.
Here is the full article.
About Windfall Film:
Windfall Films is an independent production company which makes documentary films, primarily for television. Formed in 1988 by three ex-BBC producers, it has been commissioned by BBC TV, Channel Four, British Screen in the UK; PBS, Discovery and Time-Life/NBC in America; and NHK in Japan.
The company has established an international reputation as a producer of innovative television programmes and has won many major awards for its productions, including two Emmys, a Banff ‘Rocky’, Royal Television Society awards and a Glaxo award. It is one of the leading producers of science & technology programmes in the UK . It also specialises in observational, historical and social documentaries.
The article says you were the world’s first grandmaster. Susan, I didn’t think you were *that* old to have been given the grandmaster title by Czar Nicholas himself!
Obviously the article meant first woman to hold the men’s grandmaster title.
This is way awesome. I can’t wait to see it.
This will be interesting to watch. I disagree with your father’s theories (if I understand them correctly), believing rather that it’s a combination of “nature and nurture.” Regarding Chess, for example, anyone starting early enough and with enough dedication can become quite good. But a 2600-2700+ grandmaster? No, I think that takes innate talent, too.
This documentary will be interesting.
I heard about this last year. I’m looking forward to seeing this.
Excellent!
I always thought the Polgar sisters were the best proof in the world that their father was correct.
However, I have to agree some with Anthony. And I believe Susan’s father would agree also. Obviously even a genius like me has not risen to the super GM level. LOL. Here I sit stuck at the bottom of the patzer level. So that is proof of something also.
Of course some of my chess friends claim it is because I am not a genius. LOL.
All kidding aside Susan I must watch this for sure. I really want to see what they have to say. I want my young genius grand daughter to watch also.
Yes yes I know. we are all genius around this family. After all we play chess.
Has anyone else tried the “Polgar genius experiment”? Some must have, I suppose.
This is great. I hope it will come to the US soon.
In a recent university study (2007)Bilalić, McLeod & Gobet write:
Our results highlight how difficult it is to find an unambiguous association between intelligence and chess skill. When we tested the whole sample of children, some of whom had just recently started to play chess, we found a moderately positive correlation between intelligence and chess skill thus confirming some previous studies … But when we examined the role of intelligence among highly skilled young chess players we found not only the same absence of the association between intelligence and chess skill that is usually reported among adult chess players … but also that smarter children had actually achieved a lower level of chess skill.
Susan perhaps you could start a topic on this paper.
It does not surprise me that its hard to find a concrete link since its hard to define what “intelligence” is in the first place. I would be interesting in seeing a copy of the article. Hopfully it is in English.
Sincerely,
Dr. Karlsson (hal.karlsson@ttu.edu)
P. S. Maybe we should be looking for a chess “gene”?
I just watched the programme on UK Channel Five. The descriptions of methods for recognition of patterns were very familiar. Memories oh memories. As a student in Edinburgh 30 years ago I met an honours psychology student at a party and ended up bringing over 20 engineering students to the lab to do spatial tests. We were up to 10 times faster than previous random samples from the general student population. The fastest example was recognising a position in a grid after a 2ms exposure. That experience left me fascinated by the whole subject of spatial ability. It has also left me able to trust my spatial memory more than I might otherwise have done. (Rubbish at chess.)
I really enjoyed the program, hope it appears on google video soon so I can see it again and post it on my blog 😀
wow truly amazing…never thought this was possible…
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I watched this feature and I think it’s really amazing and inspiring! And I have to agree to what Susan said that if you put your mind to it you can achieve it.
I just watched a recording of this facinating documentary.
In the neverending “nature vs nurture” debate, I think this documentary makes a strong case for training a genius, rather than accidentally obtaining one at birth. The argument conveyed here, is that endless analysis of chess games during Susan’s childhood, has imprinted hardwired chess pattern recognition in the area of her brain that is normally used for face recognition.
I believe that the circumstances for forming these circuits are only available during youth, when a brain is still being “molded”. With all the dedication in the world, an adult could never start constructing equally efficient chess circuits later on.
The argument was beautifully demonstrated with the “pattern glimpse” experiment. Susan could commit a regular chess situation to memory, with the same speed that other people might recognize a face of somebody walking by. With a meaningless random setup of chess pieces, she could no longer reconstruct the pattern – just like other people would not be able to redraw a garbled “Picasso”-like image of a face, after a short viewing.
In exchange for hardwiring chess patterns in the face recognition area of the brain, Susan might perhaps not be able to readily retrieve one thousand faces of childhood television series characters, like many other people can. Is it simply a matter of choosing to which purposes some brain resources will be allocated, or can a larger-than-average number of circuits be “grown” during childhood, simply by keeping up a high demand level, through all sorts of training and exercises ?