E@Chess 0.23 serial key or number

Expert versus novice differences in the detection of relevant information during a chess game: Evidence from eye movements

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Heather eSheridan

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The present study explored the ability of expert and novice chessplayers to rapidly distinguish between regions of a chessboard that were relevant to the best move on the board, and regions of the board that were irrelevant. Accordingly, we monitored the eye movements of expert and novice chessplayers, while they selected white’s best move for a variety of chess problems. To manipulate relevancy, we constructed two different versions of each chess problem in the experiment, and we counterbalanced these versions across participants. These two versions of each problem were identical except that a single piece was changed from a bishop to a knight. This subtle change reversed the relevancy map of the board, such that regions that were relevant in one version of the board were now irrelevant (and vice versa. Using this paradigm, we demonstrated that both the experts and novices spent more time fixating the relevant relative to the irrelevant regions of the board. However, the experts were faster at detecting relevant information than the novices, as shown by the finding that experts (but not novices were able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information during the early part of the trial. These findings further demonstrate the domain-related perceptual processing advantage of chessexperts, using an experimental paradigm that allowed us to manipulate relevancy under tightly controlled conditions.

Chess Expertise and Memory for Chess Positions in Children and Adults.

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Schneider, Wolfgang; And Others

1993-01-01

A study presented four groups of chessplayers (child experts and novices, adult experts and novices) with short-term memory tasks involving meaningful and random chess positions, as well as a control board composed of geometric-shaped spaces and pieces. Found that child experts' immediate recall for meaningful chess positions was far superior to…

Improving International-Level ChessPlayers' Performance with an Acceptance-Based Protocol: Preliminary Findings

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Ruiz, Francisco J.; Luciano, Carmen

2012-01-01

This study compared an individual, 4-hr intervention based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) versus a no-contact control condition in improving the performance of international-level chessplayers. Five participants received the brief ACT protocol, with each matched to another chessplayer with similar characteristics in the control…

Risk taking in adversarial situations: Civilization differences in chessexperts.

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Chassy, Philippe; Gobet, Fernand

2015-08-01

The projections of experts in politics predict that a new world order will emerge within two decades. Being multipolar, this world will inevitably lead to frictions where civilizations and states will have to decide whether to risk conflict. Very often these decisions are informed if not taken by experts. To estimate risk-taking across civilizations, we examined strategies used in 667,599 chess games played over eleven years by chessexperts from 11 different civilizations. We show that some civilizations are more inclined to settle for peace. Similarly, we show that once engaged in the battle, the level of risk taking varies significantly across civilizations, the boldest civilization using the riskiest strategy about 35% more than the most conservative civilization. We discuss which psychological factors might underpin these civilizational differences. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

[Physical fitness in relation to age and body build of young chessplayers].

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Fornal-Urban, Agnieszka; Keska, Anna; Dobosz, Janusz; Nowacka-Dobosz, Sylwia

2009-01-01

Specificity of chess training promotes sedentary lifestyle and may reduce chessplayers participation in different physical activities. Limited physical activity leads to decrease of physical fitness and may augment the risk of overweight and obesity. It is suggested that these athletes will characterize more frequently lower physical fitness and weight/height proportions disorders. The aim of the study was evaluation of physical fitness and its relationship with age and body build of athletes. A sample of 73 individuals (35 girls--48% and 38 boys--52%) aged 8-19 years took part in this study. All competitors were members of national team and Polish representatives for the European and world chess championship. Chessplayers' physical fitness was measured by EUROFIT tests. With reference to the Polish population chessplayers characterized higher level of physical fitness. In six tests of EUROFIT chessplayers had better standardized results than controls. Sit ups (mean standardized result 0.842), shuttle run 10 x 5 m (0.577), standing broad jump (0.552) and flamingo balance (0.371) were very well performed by chessplayers. Only in one test, bent arm hang, sportsmen achieved worse results (-0.719). Permanent decrease of chessplayers' physical fitness with age was also observed. Although chessplayers' physical fitness was satisfied in comparison to age-matched control, it is recommended to include in their training more exercises developing strength. Because of changes in body build with age and decrease of physical fitness, chessplayers ought to participate in regular physical activity. Therefore chess organisers should provide the variety of active forms that can be chosen by competitors in their leisure time.

Playing Chess Unconsciously

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Kiesel, Andrea; Kunde, Wilfried; Pohl, Carsten; Berner, Michael P.; Hoffmann, Joachim

2009-01-01

Expertise in a certain stimulus domain enhances perceptual capabilities. In the present article, the authors investigate whether expertise improves perceptual processing to an extent that allows complex visual stimuli to bias behavior unconsciously. Expertchessplayers judged whether a target chess configuration entailed a checking configuration.…

Revising superior planning performance in chessplayers: the impact of time restriction and motivation aspects.

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Unterrainer, Josef Martin; Kaller, Christoph Philipp; Leonhart, Rainer; Rahm, Benjamin

2011-01-01

In a previous study (Unterrainer, Kaller, Halsband, & Rahm, 2006), chessplayers outperformed non-chessplayers in the Tower of London planning task but exhibited disproportionately longer processing times. This pattern of results raises the question of whether chessplayers' planning capabilities are superior or whether the results reflect differences in the speed-accuracy trade-off between the groups, possibly attributable to sports motivation. The present study was designed to disambiguate these alternative suggestions by implementing various constraints on planning time and by assessing self-reported motivation. In contrast to the previous study, chessplayers' performance was not superior, independently of whether problems had to be solved with (Experiment 1) or without (Experiment 2) time limits. As expected, chessplayers reported higher overall trait and state motivation scores across both experiments. These findings revise the notion of superior planning performance in chessplayers. In consequence, they do not conform with the assumption of a general transfer of chess-related planning expertise to other cognitive domains, instead suggesting that superior performance may be possible only under specific circumstances such as receiving competitive instructions.

Deliberate practice predicts performance over time in adolescent chessplayers and drop-outs: a linear mixed models analysis.

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de Bruin, Anique B H; Smits, Niels; Rikers, Remy M J P; Schmidt, Henk G

2008-11-01

In this study, the longitudinal relation between deliberate practice and performance in chess was examined using a linear mixed models analysis. The practice activities and performance ratings of young elite chessplayers, who were either in, or had dropped out of the Dutch national chess training, were analysed since they had started playing chess seriously. The results revealed that deliberate practice (i.e. serious chess study alone and serious chess play) strongly contributed to chess performance. The influence of deliberate practice was not only observable in current performance, but also over chessplayers' careers. Moreover, although the drop-outs' chess ratings developed more slowly over time, both the persistent and drop-out chessplayers benefited to the same extent from investments in deliberate practice. Finally, the effect of gender on chess performance proved to be much smaller than the effect of deliberate practice. This study provides longitudinal support for the monotonic benefits assumption of deliberate practice, by showing that over chessplayers' careers, deliberate practice has a significant effect on performance, and to the same extent for chessplayers of different ultimate performance levels. The results of this study are not in line with critique raised against the deliberate practice theory that the factors deliberate practice and talent could be confounded.

Use of Biotechnological Devices in the Quantification of Psychophysiological Workload of Professional ChessPlayers.

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Fuentes, Juan P; Villafaina, Santos; Collado-Mateo, Daniel; de la Vega, Ricardo; Gusi, Narcis; Clemente-Suárez, Vicente Javier

2018-01-19

Psychophysiological requirements of chessplayers are poorly understood, and periodization of training is often made without any empirical basis. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to investigate the psychophysiological response and quantify the player internal load during, and after playing a chess game. The participant was an elite 33 year-old male chessplayer ranked among the 300 best chessplayers in the world. Thus, cortical arousal by critical flicker fusion threshold, electroencephalogram by the theta Fz/alpha Pz ratio and autonomic modulation by heart rate variability were analyzed. Data revealed that cortical arousal by critical flicker fusion threshold and theta Fz/alpha Pz ratio increased and heart rate variability decreased during chess game. All these changes indicated that internal load increased during the chess game. In addition, pre-activation was detected in pre-game measure, suggesting that the prefrontal cortex might be preparatory activated. For these reasons, electroencephalogram, critical flicker fusion threshold and heart rate variability analysis may be highly applicable tools to control and monitor workload in chessplayer.

Reduced caudate volume and enhanced striatal-DMN integration in chessexperts.

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Duan, Xujun; He, Sheng; Liao, Wei; Liang, Dongmei; Qiu, Lihua; Wei, Luqing; Li, Yuan; Liu, Chengyi; Gong, Qiyong; Chen, Huafu

2012-04-02

The superior capability of chessexperts largely depends on quick automatic processing skills which are considered to be mediated by the caudate nucleus. We asked whether continued practice or rehearsal of the skill over a long period of time can lead to structural changes in this region. We found that, comparing to novice controls, grandmaster and master level Chinese chessplayers (GM/Ms), who had a mean period of over 10years of tournament and training practice, exhibited significant smaller gray-matter volume in the bilateral caudate nuclei. When these regions were used as seeds in functional connectivity analysis in resting-state fMRI, significantly enhanced integration was found in GM/Ms between the caudate and the default mode network (DMN), a constellation of brain areas important for goal-directed cognitive performance and theory of mind. These findings demonstrate the structural changes in the caudate nucleus in response to its extensive engagement in chess problem solving, and its enhanced functional integration with widely distributed circuitry to better support high-level cognitive control of behavior. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

QEEG-based neural correlates of decision making in a well-trained eight year-old chessplayer.

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Alipour, Abolfazl; Seifzadeh, Sahar; Aligholi, Hadi; Nami, Mohammad

2017-10-25

The neurocognitive substrates of decision making (DM) in the context of chess has appealed to researchers' interest for decades. Expert and beginner chessplayers are hypothesized to employ different brain functional networks when involved in episodes of critical DM upon chess. Cognitive capacities including, but not restricted to pattern recognition, visuospatial search, reasoning, planning and DM are perhaps the key determinants of rewarding and judgmental decisions in chess. Meanwhile, the precise neural correlates of DM in this context has largely remained elusive. The quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) is an investigation tool possessing a proper temporal resolution in the study of neural correlates of cognitive tasks at cortical level. Here, we used a 22-channel EEG setup and digital polygraphy in a well-trained 8 year-old boy while engaged in playing chess against the computer. Quantitative analyses were done to map and source-localize the EEG signals. Our analyses indicated a lower power spectral density (PSD) for higher frequency bands in the right hemisphere upon DM-related epochs. Moreover, the information flow upon DM blocks in this particular case was more of posterior towards anterior brain regions.

A confidence in itself, as mortgage of successful competition activity of the young chess-players

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Khoroshavina A.V.

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Presents the results of the study the basic aspects of self-confidence of young players. The study involved 54 young chessplayers. Of these, 34 students Kherson CYSS Chess. 20 players from different regions of Ukraine. Age investigated from 10 to 15 years. The dependence of the confidence of participation in competitions for young players on the level of anxiety, motivational set, strong-willed self-control. In the result of performance of young chessplayers in the competition is directly proportional to the strength of motivation to succeed installation. Most athletes have been observed high levels of self-willed. Self-control depends on the experience of participation of young players in the competition, as well as facilities manager.

Deliberate practice predicts performance throughout time in adolescent chessplayers and dropouts: A linear mixed models analysis.

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de Bruin, A.B.H.; Smits, N.; Rikers, R.M.J.P.; Schmidt, H.G.

2008-01-01

In this study, the longitudinal relation between deliberate practice and performance in chess was examined using a linear mixed models analysis. The practice activities and performance ratings of young elite chessplayers, who were either in, or had dropped out of the Dutch national chess training,

Many faces of expertise: fusiform face area in chessexperts and novices.

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Bilalić, Merim; Langner, Robert; Ulrich, Rolf; Grodd, Wolfgang

2011-07-13

The fusiform face area (FFA) is involved in face perception to such an extent that some claim it is a brain module for faces exclusively. The other possibility is that FFA is modulated by experience in individuation in any visual domain, not only faces. Here we test this latter FFA expertise hypothesis using the game of chess as a domain of investigation. We exploited the characteristic of chess, which features multiple objects forming meaningful spatial relations. In three experiments, we show that FFA activity is related to stimulus properties and not to chess skill directly. In all chess and non-chess tasks, experts' FFA was more activated than that of novices' only when they dealt with naturalistic full-board chess positions. When common spatial relationships formed by chess objects in chess positions were randomly disturbed, FFA was again differentially active only in experts, regardless of the actual task. Our experiments show that FFA contributes to the holistic processing of domain-specific multipart stimuli in chessexperts. This suggests that FFA may not only mediate human expertise in face recognition but, supporting the expertise hypothesis, may mediate the automatic holistic processing of any highly familiar multipart visual input.

Does Chess Need Intelligence?--A Study with Young ChessPlayers

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Bilalic, Merim; McLeod, Peter; Gobet, Fernand

2007-01-01

Although it is widely acknowledged that chess is the best example of an intellectual activity among games, evidence showing the association between any kind of intellectual ability and chess skill has been remarkably sparse. One of the reasons is that most of the studies investigated only one factor (e.g., intelligence), neglecting other factors…

Multimodal Observation and Classification of People Engaged in Problem Solving: Application to ChessPlayers

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Thomas Guntz

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper we present the first results of a pilot experiment in the interpretation of multimodal observations of human experts engaged in solving challenging chess problems. Our goal is to investigate the extent to which observations of eye-gaze, posture, emotion and other physiological signals can be used to model the cognitive state of subjects, and to explore the integration of multiple sensor modalities to improve the reliability of detection of human displays of awareness and emotion. Domains of application for such cognitive model based systems are, for instance, healthy autonomous ageing or automated training systems. Abilities to observe cognitive abilities and emotional reactions can allow artificial systems to provide appropriate assistance in such contexts. We observed chessplayers engaged in problems of increasing difficulty while recording their behavior. Such recordings can be used to estimate a participant’s awareness of the current situation and to predict ability to respond effectively to challenging situations. Feature selection has been performed to construct a multimodal classifier relying on the most relevant features from each modality. Initial results indicate that eye-gaze, body posture and emotion are good features to capture such awareness. This experiment also validates the use of our equipment as a general and reproducible tool for the study of participants engaged in screen-based interaction and/or problem solving.

Comprehensive Investigation of White Matter Tracts in Professional ChessPlayers and Relation to Expertise: Region of Interest and DMRI Connectometry.

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Mayeli, Mahsa; Rahmani, Farzaneh; Aarabi, Mohammad Hadi

2018-01-01

Purpose: Expertise is the product of training. Few studies have used functional connectivity or conventional diffusometric methods to identify neural underpinnings of chess expertise. Diffusometric variables of white matter might reflect these adaptive changes, along with changes in structural connectivity, which is a sensitive measure of microstructural changes. Method: Diffusometric variables of 29 professional chessplayers and 29 age-sex matched controls were extracted for white matter regions based on John Hopkin's Mori white matter atlas and partially correlated against professional training time and level of chess proficiency. Diffusion MRI connectometry was implemented to identify changes in structural connectivity in professional players compared to novices. Result: Compared to novices, higher planar anisotropy (CP) was observed in inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and cingulate gyrus, in professional chessplayers, which correlated with higher RPM score in this group. Higher fractional anisotropy (FA) was observed in ILF, uncinate fasciculus (UF) and hippocampus and correlated with better scores in Raven's progressive matrices (RPM) score and longer duration of chess training in professional players. Consistently, radial diffusivity in bilateral IFOF, bilateral ILF and bilateral SLF was inversely correlated with level of training in professional players. DMRI connectometry analysis identified increased connectivity in bilateral UF, bilateral IFOF, bilateral cingulum, and corpus callosum in chessplayer's compared to controls. Conclusion: Structural connectivity of major associational subcortical white matter fibers are increased in professional chessplayers. FA and CP of ILF, SLF and UF directly correlates with duration of professional training and RPM score, in professional chessplayers.

Chess knowledge predicts chess memory even after controlling for chess experience: Evidence for the role of high-level processes.

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Lane, David M; Chang, Yu-Hsuan A

2018-04-01

The expertise effect in memory for chess positions is one of the most robust effects in cognitive psychology. One explanation of this effect is that chess recall is based on the recognition of familiar patterns and that experts have learned more and larger patterns. Template theory and its instantiation as a computational model are based on this explanation. An alternative explanation is that the expertise effect is due, in part, to stronger players having better and more conceptual knowledge, with this knowledge facilitating memory performance. Our literature review supports the latter view. In our experiment, a sample of 79 chessplayers were given a test of memory for chess positions, a test of declarative chess knowledge, a test of fluid intelligence, and a questionnaire concerning the amount of time they had played nontournament chess and the amount of time they had studied chess. We determined the numbers of tournament games the players had played from chess databases. Chess knowledge correlated .67 with chess memory and accounted for 16% of the variance after controlling for chess experience. Fluid intelligence accounted for an additional 13% of the variance. These results support the conclusion that both high-level conceptual processing and low-level recognition of familiar patterns play important roles in memory for chess positions.

Effects of weather anomalies on the intellectual performance: Chess mistakes of the world top-ranked players

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Mika, J.; Verőci, Zs.; Fülöp, A.; Hirsch, T.; Dúll, A.

2009-04-01

Weather disturbances like fronts, influence human biorhythm, our biological balance becomes manipulated, and adaptation mechanisms are impaired. Our working hypothesis is that even the best chessplayers of the world are not exceptions from this rule. As their movements on the chess board, as well as the best possible ones, if they missed to make, are already assessed by computers objectively, we can use this game as a model of intellectual performance. By the date of the Abstract edition, 580 wrong chess moves were selected with the threshold of over 1/3 peasant to be lost. I.e. this is the minimum difference between the assessment of the positions after the best possible and the really performed move. (Obviously, all moves both sides in ca. the same number of games were checked, i.e. over 35,000 moves were assessed.) For assessing the moves, the most popular database is MegaDatabase 2006 (ChessBase- Hamburg), Chess Informant Expert from Chess Informant Beograd and the program ChessBase 9.0 together with the engines Fritz 10, Rybka 2.3, Junior 10. First of all the World Chess Champions, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand were examined played in the traditional big chess tournaments, category 19th and more (average rating more the 2701 Elo-points). We further selected the games by the top-ranked players of the world between 2005 and 2008. This selection is explained by the likely fact that they make the less wrong moves for simply the lack of chess understanding, moreover, as full professionals, they allow the minimum of non-weather disturbing circumstances (e.g. imperfect sleeping before the game, etc.). Their moves were selected as (i) very wrong move with more than 3.0 differences, (i.e. unforced loss of a knight, or a bishop, (ii) very weak move with an assessment of 1.0-3.0, (i.e. unforced loss between one peasant and one bishop/knight) and (iii) weak move with less than 1.0 assessment of the passed chance, or unforced loss of less than one peasant. These new

ERP to chess stimuli reveal expert-novice differences in the amplitudes of N2 and P3 components.

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Wright, Michael J; Gobet, Fernand; Chassy, Philippe; Ramchandani, Payal Nanik

2013-10-01

ERP experiments were conducted to analyze the underlying neural events when chessplayers make simple judgments of a board position. Fourteen expertplayers and 14 age-matched novices viewed, for each of four tasks, 128 unique positions on a mini (4 × 4) chess board each presented for 0.5 s. The tasks were to respond: (a) if white king was in check, (b) if black knight was present, (c) if white king was not in check, and (d) if no black knight was present. Experts showed an enhanced N2 with check targets and a larger P3 with knight targets, relative to novices. Expert-novice differences in posterior N2 began as early as 240 ms on check-related searches. Results were consistent with the view that prolonged N2 components reflect matching of current perceptual input to memory, and thus are sensitive to experts' superior pattern recognition and memory retrieval of chunks. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.