Good work, thanks for posting on the 'science of expertise', a field I am writing on also. I am a big student of 'chunking theory', that was one of the foundations of the Cognitive Revolution, and birth of Computer Science, with George Miller's 1956 "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" and later Chase & Simon 1973 'Perception in Chess'. Chunking theory has become less popular, with the second Cognitive Revolution focusing more on neuropsychology.
The 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' still prevents much progress, as we are relegated to Psychometric Tests or Neural Correlates of Consciousness. I am working on a series examining 'Models of Expertise' many based on chunking theory, but the vast majority of models of expertise follow Chase & Simon's Chunking Theory Model, that came up with the 10,000 hour to Mastery Heuristic and Anders Ericsson deliberate practice.
As I noted in my recent blog, studies on expertise started with chess, most somewhat based on deGroots 'Thought and Choice in Chess' (1965), but that changed after Anders Ericsson and other research in the 1990s, and now chess is not that interesting to cognitive science anymore. And the results of the studies on chess have been disappointing to top chess players. As studies tended to show that chess is at most loosely related to high intelligence or any special cognitive ability, and simply the result of spending thousands of hours 'chunking' patterns. And that 'transfer' of expertise has been shown to be limited, and top chess players have failed to demonstrate in any manner an ability to transfer skills to other fields.
But chess in schools, and a method to teach basic thinking skills is still has some evidence, especially for underperforming students. More effort needs to be put into testing the early stages of the process, from novice to intermediate, than that of experts, as likely there is little to learn from studying experts. As very few people will want to invest the thousands of hours to reach experts, and most experts have cognitive dissonance against admitting their mastery came from the investment of thousands of hours of deliberate practice, that can not be usefully transferred to other fields. So there is a standstill between cognitive science and chess promoters, where the majority of chess masters and trainers ignore or even reject the scientific evidence. And rarely will someone with the expertise in Cognitive Science invest the deliberate practice to be a chess master, so the audience of people trying to improve at chess are stuck with the conflicting message they get from chess masters and trainers and cognitive science students of the 'science of expertise'.
Blessings, and good work again!
The 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' still prevents much progress, as we are relegated to Psychometric Tests or Neural Correlates of Consciousness. I am working on a series examining 'Models of Expertise' many based on chunking theory, but the vast majority of models of expertise follow Chase & Simon's Chunking Theory Model, that came up with the 10,000 hour to Mastery Heuristic and Anders Ericsson deliberate practice.
As I noted in my recent blog, studies on expertise started with chess, most somewhat based on deGroots 'Thought and Choice in Chess' (1965), but that changed after Anders Ericsson and other research in the 1990s, and now chess is not that interesting to cognitive science anymore. And the results of the studies on chess have been disappointing to top chess players. As studies tended to show that chess is at most loosely related to high intelligence or any special cognitive ability, and simply the result of spending thousands of hours 'chunking' patterns. And that 'transfer' of expertise has been shown to be limited, and top chess players have failed to demonstrate in any manner an ability to transfer skills to other fields.
But chess in schools, and a method to teach basic thinking skills is still has some evidence, especially for underperforming students. More effort needs to be put into testing the early stages of the process, from novice to intermediate, than that of experts, as likely there is little to learn from studying experts. As very few people will want to invest the thousands of hours to reach experts, and most experts have cognitive dissonance against admitting their mastery came from the investment of thousands of hours of deliberate practice, that can not be usefully transferred to other fields. So there is a standstill between cognitive science and chess promoters, where the majority of chess masters and trainers ignore or even reject the scientific evidence. And rarely will someone with the expertise in Cognitive Science invest the deliberate practice to be a chess master, so the audience of people trying to improve at chess are stuck with the conflicting message they get from chess masters and trainers and cognitive science students of the 'science of expertise'.
Blessings, and good work again!
Some Greek Gift sequences are easier to play at optimal precision/speed than others. The Greek Gift is often the recommended maneuver, even when not yielding a forced checkmate sequence. The Greek Gift is sometimes played to force a draw.
An useless science, indeed.
Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
@pilotlet said in #4:
> An useless science, indeed.
>
> Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
Thanks. I made a few edits to try and emphasize that this isn't intended to be a discussion of how to improve or what factors may limit improvement.
> An useless science, indeed.
>
> Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
Thanks. I made a few edits to try and emphasize that this isn't intended to be a discussion of how to improve or what factors may limit improvement.
Interesting article and experiment - does visual priming also work when one is conscious of the first image as opposed to the method described here? I'm asking because I wonder whether results on puzzle storm for example are affected by the order of the shown exercises. Or if relevant piece compositions or squares for a solution were to stay the same from one puzzle to the next, how that would affect results.
I know that on chess com for example usually the first few exercises in puzzle rush are back rank checkmates and that makes it easy to pick up speed in the beginning.
I also wonder whether in the case of the blind person (visual area damaged, not the retina) other parts of the brain take over parts of the function of the formerly visual part, even if it is not perceived as such. Was the person consciously aware where the objects were placed even if they didn't see them as a mental image or did their feet just walk the correct way?
@pilotlet said in #4:
> An useless science, indeed.
>
> Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
I think improvement in any area should even be zero once you've reached your full potential, because by definition you can't go any further. To me improvement is about making the most out of one's potential.
I know that on chess com for example usually the first few exercises in puzzle rush are back rank checkmates and that makes it easy to pick up speed in the beginning.
I also wonder whether in the case of the blind person (visual area damaged, not the retina) other parts of the brain take over parts of the function of the formerly visual part, even if it is not perceived as such. Was the person consciously aware where the objects were placed even if they didn't see them as a mental image or did their feet just walk the correct way?
@pilotlet said in #4:
> An useless science, indeed.
>
> Chess is all genetics, improvement in chess is minimal once you reached your full potential and/or maturity.
I think improvement in any area should even be zero once you've reached your full potential, because by definition you can't go any further. To me improvement is about making the most out of one's potential.
@svensp said in #6:
> Interesting article and experiment - does visual priming also work when one is conscious of the first image as opposed to the method described here? I'm asking because I wonder whether results on puzzle storm for example are affected by the order of the shown exercises. Or if relevant piece compositions or squares for a solution were to stay the same from one puzzle to the next, how that would affect results.
Yes, as a puzzle storm fan (obsessive) I definitely think that's right---having similar themes in a row definitely seems to increase my speed.
I wonder if your idea could be used to create a typology of chess themes. It seems theoretically possible to give a group, say, 1000 chess puzzles in various orders and then use the strength of priming to compute the "distance" between any two puzzles. You could use that data to see how many themes there were, and whether the themes change between beginners and advanced players.
BTW, it's interesting that of two previous posts, one says mastery is "simply the result of spending thousands of hours 'chunking' patterns", while the other says it's all genetics :D
> Interesting article and experiment - does visual priming also work when one is conscious of the first image as opposed to the method described here? I'm asking because I wonder whether results on puzzle storm for example are affected by the order of the shown exercises. Or if relevant piece compositions or squares for a solution were to stay the same from one puzzle to the next, how that would affect results.
Yes, as a puzzle storm fan (obsessive) I definitely think that's right---having similar themes in a row definitely seems to increase my speed.
I wonder if your idea could be used to create a typology of chess themes. It seems theoretically possible to give a group, say, 1000 chess puzzles in various orders and then use the strength of priming to compute the "distance" between any two puzzles. You could use that data to see how many themes there were, and whether the themes change between beginners and advanced players.
BTW, it's interesting that of two previous posts, one says mastery is "simply the result of spending thousands of hours 'chunking' patterns", while the other says it's all genetics :D
> One of the big ideas - maybe THE big idea - in the cognitive science literature about chess is something called template theory. This refers to the idea that chess players build up a library of chess-position "chunks" over time
I had something similar in my head, that being good at chess was simply memorizing thousands of patterns. The related theory of chess improvement seemed to be to just quiz myself on increasingly hard basic tactics, chessable-style. After failing to improve much that way, now I think a lot of chess is about building good habits.
I remember a Perpetual Podcast with Christopher Chabris, a relatively famous cognitive scientist, who mentioned that, he also over-emphasized the chunking theory of chess, and said he now put more emphasis on more abstract thinking skills. He plays chess and understands psychology both at a much higher level than I do, so I don't think his problem with chunking was the same as mine. I didn't really understand what he was saying there, but I thought it was interesting.
I had something similar in my head, that being good at chess was simply memorizing thousands of patterns. The related theory of chess improvement seemed to be to just quiz myself on increasingly hard basic tactics, chessable-style. After failing to improve much that way, now I think a lot of chess is about building good habits.
I remember a Perpetual Podcast with Christopher Chabris, a relatively famous cognitive scientist, who mentioned that, he also over-emphasized the chunking theory of chess, and said he now put more emphasis on more abstract thinking skills. He plays chess and understands psychology both at a much higher level than I do, so I don't think his problem with chunking was the same as mine. I didn't really understand what he was saying there, but I thought it was interesting.
The nature / nurtured debate, in terms of science expertise is personified by the debate between Anders Ericsson & Françoys Gagné, but think the evidence points more towards Ericsson's Deliberate Practice. A meta study between all forms of expertise shows deliberate practice the largest contributing factor of 25% to 50% of variability.
And Gagné's model if multi-factorial, with genetics still playing just one part among many factors. There is no serious theory of the path from novice to master that does not involve thousands of hours of work (think the 10,000 heuristic). But genetics can be loosely and unclearly defined, to not really mean much when people say it is genetic. But certainly people with below average cognitive skills can and have become masters, even Grandmasters, it just takes longer, and being highly talented, without hard work, people with less talent and more ambition will quickly pass one buy.
Ericsson's deliberate practice model corresponds with template / chunking theory, as no one is born with those 'chunks', and they are acquired by deliberate practice, probably why 'experts' will show different brain patterns, as the brain is rewired over thousands of hours of practice.
Another interesting point, is chunking theory is the key strategy of speed reading and most memory techniques. Possibly chunking provides a universal theory of mind (like Karl Friston's Active Inference / Free Energy Principle as Chunking), at least expertise of how all skills are built up, including new theories of language acquisition.
Blessing NDpatzer, keep up the great work.
Anyone with further interest in the subject should read Fernand Gobet, an International Master and Cognitive Psychologist, as besides for Adriaan de Groot, most of the famous studies on chess, and advancers of 'chunking theories' and 'models of expertise' were just club level chess players.
And Gagné's model if multi-factorial, with genetics still playing just one part among many factors. There is no serious theory of the path from novice to master that does not involve thousands of hours of work (think the 10,000 heuristic). But genetics can be loosely and unclearly defined, to not really mean much when people say it is genetic. But certainly people with below average cognitive skills can and have become masters, even Grandmasters, it just takes longer, and being highly talented, without hard work, people with less talent and more ambition will quickly pass one buy.
Ericsson's deliberate practice model corresponds with template / chunking theory, as no one is born with those 'chunks', and they are acquired by deliberate practice, probably why 'experts' will show different brain patterns, as the brain is rewired over thousands of hours of practice.
Another interesting point, is chunking theory is the key strategy of speed reading and most memory techniques. Possibly chunking provides a universal theory of mind (like Karl Friston's Active Inference / Free Energy Principle as Chunking), at least expertise of how all skills are built up, including new theories of language acquisition.
Blessing NDpatzer, keep up the great work.
Anyone with further interest in the subject should read Fernand Gobet, an International Master and Cognitive Psychologist, as besides for Adriaan de Groot, most of the famous studies on chess, and advancers of 'chunking theories' and 'models of expertise' were just club level chess players.
So I come from a more mathematical take on the nature of patterns, than from linguistic notions of chunks. Chunks as words and sequence chunks, work well with strings. But with spatial patterns, as in pattern recognition, with a well defined domain and perhaps ways to statistically extract "patterns", I wonder what would the relation be between template and pattern.
What makes the first figure you showed, pointing to, or containing either a "chunk", a "pattern" or a "template".
And what exactly on the board or generalized from that example could we use if trying to make this an automactic chess board information function.. That the chunk, pattern or template is present or not (or probably present or not....).
It seems to me that there coudl be systematic abstracting idea in there. But I do not get it. It seems that sometimes one puts the new words before the ideas, and hope the ideas will coalesnce if enough people reproduce the words in often enough similar context.
If I read that long article (which I will eventually) would I have a better discerning view between those 3 words?
What makes the first figure you showed, pointing to, or containing either a "chunk", a "pattern" or a "template".
And what exactly on the board or generalized from that example could we use if trying to make this an automactic chess board information function.. That the chunk, pattern or template is present or not (or probably present or not....).
It seems to me that there coudl be systematic abstracting idea in there. But I do not get it. It seems that sometimes one puts the new words before the ideas, and hope the ideas will coalesnce if enough people reproduce the words in often enough similar context.
If I read that long article (which I will eventually) would I have a better discerning view between those 3 words?