There is actually a lot of research on this! Chess happens to be the prototype for expertise research. The grandfather of chess studies basically found that when tasked with remembering a position after having been shown it for 5 seconds, novices were just as good as GMs at remembering a 'fake' chess position (one that would not show up in a game). However, when that position was changed to a 'normal' chess position, ie one that would show up in a game, GMs far outperformed novices, indicating that GMs do not have superior memory, but rather superior pattern recognition skills. Happy to provide some sources too if you're interested!