Abstract
Shakuntala Devi, one of the world's most prodigious mental calculators on record, past or present, is especially remarkable for the incredible speed with which she performs mental calculations on very large numbers. This rare phenomenon prompted the question of whether such exceptional performance dependes on the speed of elementary information processes. Devi's rather unexceptional reaction times on a battery of elementary cognitive tasks, which were compared with the mean RTs of college students and older adults on the same tasks, contrasts so markedly with her amazing speed of performing huge arithmetic calculations as to indicate that her skill with numbers must depend largely on the automatic encoding and retrieval of a wealth of declarative and procedural information in longterm memory rather than on any unusual basic capacities. Some kind of motivational factor that sustains enormous and prolonged interest and practice in a particular skill probably plays a larger part in extremely exceptional performance than does psychometric g or the speed of elementary information processes.
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