[ardemchenkov]

I think there're no "yes" or "no". It depends on many factors. You're talking about "Moonwalking with Einstein", but from other point of view there's a book "How life imitates chess" by Garry Kasparov, which I recommended a couple of comments below. For me, this source is reliable.

"Show a chess player a board full of randomly placed pieces and they'll have great trouble remembering the placements" - how about "Chess960"? It uses almost random positions in the beginning, which of course doesn't allow you to use already known debuts. But if we check the list of world champions, there're the same Top grossmeisters: Aronyan, Svidler, Nakamura.

I think we will have a very good practical answer in a few years. Because in 2011 the Ministry of Education of Armenia started an educational program about teaching chess in schools. This sounds very interesting and soon we will know if it helps to improve something or not.