Recognition Memory for Chess Positions: Some Preliminary Research

Goldin, Sarah E.

doi:10.2307/1421476

Cited by 44 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This is consistent with an explanation given by Goldin (1979), who showed that more highly skilled players were much better than less skilled players at recognizing (as opposed to recalling) random chess positions. Saariluoma (1984) replicated this finding for shorter presentation times.…”

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confidence: 91%

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

McGregor

Howes²

2002

Memory & Cognition

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There is much evidence that chess skill is based on chunks in memory that represent parts of positions from previously encountered games. However, the content of these chunks is a matter for debate. According to one view, (1) the closer two pieces are to each other on a board (proximity), the more likely they are to be in the same chunk, and (2) skilled players encode the precise locations of pieces. An alternative view is that what information is encoded in a chess chunk is determined more by processing of the attack/defense relations during evaluation. In three experiments, participants evaluated positions and completed recognition tests. Experiment 1 supported the view that expert players make more use of attack/defense relations than of locations of pieces in a recognition test. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that, for both long and short presentation times, expert players' recognition for a piece within a position was primed more by a piece related by attack or defense than by a piece merely proximal. These findings challenge theories of expertise for chess that assume a primary role for proximity and location in determining which pieces are grouped together in memory.

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supporting

confidence: 91%

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

McGregor

Howes²

2002

Memory & Cognition

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“…The role of recognition processes in chessplaying skill was first recognized by Adriaan de Groot (1949, and studied further by Chase and Simon (1973), Simon and Chase (1973), Goldin (1979), Charness (1981a,b), Hartston and Wason (1983), Saariluoma (1985Saariluoma ( , 1989, Lories (1987), Gobet (1993), and others. A key Recognition and Search in Simultaneous Chess 4 experimental result is that positions in chess games (with about 25 pieces on the board) can be stored in memory and reconstructed almost perfectly by masters and grandmasters after as little as five seconds' view of the board; while, under these same conditions, weak players can recall only some half dozen pieces.…”

Section: The Roles Of Recognition Processes and Look-ahead Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Roles of Recognition Processes and Look-Ahead Search in Time-Constrained Expert Problem Solving: Evidence From Grand-Master-Level Chess

1996

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Chess has long served as an important standard task environment for research on human memory and problem-solving abilities and processes In this article, we report evidence on the relative importance of recognition processes and planning (look-ahead) processes in very high level expert performance in chess The data show that the rated skill of a top-level grand master is only slightly lower when he is playing simultaneously against a half-dozen grand-master opponents than under tournament conditions that allow much more time for each move As simultaneous play allows little time for look-ahead processes, the data indicate that recognition, based on superior chess knowledge, plays a much larger part in high-level skill in this task than does planning by looking ahead

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“…He found that strong players were better in the recall of both game and random positions. Finally, Goldin (1979) and Saariluoma (1984) showed that skilled players performed better than less skilled players in a recognition task, both with game and random positions and both with long presentation times (no limit in the study time in Goldin, 1979) and short presentation times (8 sec in Saariluoma, 1984).…”

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confidence: 99%

Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill

Gobet

Simon

1996

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

195

111

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A widely cited result asserts that experts' superiority over novices in recalling meaningful material from their domain of expertise vanishes when they are confronted with random material. A review of recent chess experiments in which random positions served as control material (presentation time between 3 and 10 sec) shows, however, that strong players generally maintain some superiority over weak players even with random positions, although the relative difference between skill levels is much smaller than with game positions. The implications of this finding for expertise in chess are discussed and the question of the recall of random material in other domains is raised.A classical result in the study of expertise is that experts are better than nonexperts at memorizing meaningful material from their domain of expertise, but lose their superiority when the material is randomized. This result was first obtained in the study of chess memory (Chase & Simon, 1973b; Jongman & Lemmens, cited in Vicente & De Groot, 1990) and has since been widely cited in cognitive psychology textbooks (see, e.g., Anderson, 1990;Lesgold, 1988) and hailed as one of the cornerstones of the study of expertise (Saariluoma, 1989). The basic relation between skill and meaningfulness has been replicated in various domains, although wide variations in the presentation time of the stimuli make quantitative comparisons difficult: Go (Reitman, 1976); bridge (Charness, 1979;Engle & Bukstel, 1978); Othello (Wolff, Mitchell, & Frey, 1984); electronics (Egan & Schwartz, 1979); computer programs (McKeithen, Reitman, Rueter, & Hirtle, 1981); basketball (Allard, Graham, & Paarsalu, 1980). Some studies, however, have found that experts keep their superiority over novices when the material is memory for randomized sequences of pitch symbols (Sloboda, 1976) and dance sequences (Allard & Starkes, 1991).A complete lack of difference in memory for random material between experts and nonexperts is somewhat counterintuitive. Simon and Chase (1973) have proposed that 10,000 h, or about 10 years, of intense practice and study are necessary to reach a high level of expertise. During their practice and study time experts have undoubtedly met with many situations that are close to "random"; that is, situations containing some infrequently observed features. In the frame of Chase and Simon's (1973a) chunking theory, one would expect that the numerous chunks experts have stored in long-term memory (LTM) including some of these unusual features, would allow them to recognize, more often than weak players, familiar chunks that occur adventitiously in random positions, giving them an advantage in recall. It is also possible that strong players have developed strategies to cope with uncommon situations, which do occur sometimes in their practice. In addition, their familiarity with the materials (e.g., in board games, better knowledge of the topology of the board and its attributes) might give them some advantage over nonexperts.In this paper, we reexamine the recall ...

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Recognition Memory for Chess Positions: Some Preliminary Research

Cited by 44 publications

References 15 publications

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

The role of attack and defense semantics in skilled players’ memory for chess positions

The Roles of Recognition Processes and Look-Ahead Search in Time-Constrained Expert Problem Solving: Evidence From Grand-Master-Level Chess

Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill

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