An interesting historical study of calculating prodigies turned up evidence that the famous nineteenth century idiots-savants with powerful calculating ability were often no better at calculation than department store clerks from the era when store clerks had to do calculations mentally or by pencil and paper (without any help from a cash register or other machine). Years of drudgery, steadily doing arithmetic in a variety of contexts, can turn into "chunking" ability that speeds mental calculation and results in apparently magical feats of mental arithmetic.
Actually, research shows that it can, and has been.
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1172019/?site...
An interesting historical study of calculating prodigies turned up evidence that the famous nineteenth century idiots-savants with powerful calculating ability were often no better at calculation than department store clerks from the era when store clerks had to do calculations mentally or by pencil and paper (without any help from a cash register or other machine). Years of drudgery, steadily doing arithmetic in a variety of contexts, can turn into "chunking" ability that speeds mental calculation and results in apparently magical feats of mental arithmetic.