If you consider PA essentially a language -- and I think it is -- then exposure at a very young age would almost certainly give an advantage.
I think the topic of the thread is fascinating, I have been wondering about the same. What I also think is fascinating that people STILL don't know that things like Google exist. Lookie what I have found with 20 seconds search: http://www.torontolife.com/informer/people/2011/12/15/q-and-a-julian-marchese/ Q&A: Julian Marchese, 15-year-old day-trading savant " Another time, when I was 9, I recommended that my parents buy into a uranium company. They didn’t, but in two months the company tripled in value." Here he is 2 years later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaKHs4t2Fow
You are correct. I don't think anyone made a test/experience with true savants. I had this idea that I would sit the savant kid in front of charts, let him study them for a while and I would ask pointing at a certain chart what he thinks, which direction it would go? Then record the results and see if there is any consistency. Hey speaking of available savant kids, anyone know such a kid to let me borrow him/her?
Here is another unorthodox avenue of approaching the problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Repository for Germinal Choice, better known as the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, was founded in 1980 by multimillionaire Robert Graham, inventor of shatterproof eyeglass lenses. His goal was to combine the sperm and eggs of superior men and women
Interesting thread. (Autistic) savants are extremely good at solving computationally intensive problems that are complete in the sense that all required inputs are known and the algorithm for getting from inputs to answer is also widely known. 'Predicting' the direction of any asset price is not a problem that meets these criteria. Nobody actually knows how to do it or even if it can be done. It is also worth noting that the most successful market operators in history have either not bothered to predict market direction (Buffett) or effectively managed risk every time they did (Soros, PTJ). Why get a genius to solve a non problem?
I tried to copy and paste the article but something won't allow it. So here it is if you are interested. The biology of humans is little different from other mammals and so improving the species remains possible I suppose. http://mentalfloss.com/article/12753/sperm-bank-nobel-prize-winners
Some of the cleverest people on the planet are employed to...solve this very problem. If they ever do then that is the end of markets/capitalism etc. It might be better to get them onto other problems like fusion power, flubber, teleporting etc.