The mind's eye in blindfold chess

Authors: Campitelli, Guillermo; Gobet, Fernand

Source: The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, Volume 17, Number 1, January 2005 , pp. 23-45(23)

Publisher: Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Visual imagery plays an important role in problem solving, and research into blindfold chess has provided a wealth of empirical data on this question. We show how a recent theory of expert memory (the template theory; Gobet & Simon, 1996b, 2000) accounts for most of these data. However, how the mind's eye filters out relevant from irrelevant information is still underspecified in the theory. We describe two experiments addressing this question, in which chess games are presented visually, move by move, on a board that contains irrelevant information (static positions, semistatic positions, and positions changing every move). The results show that irrelevant information affects chess masters only when it changes during the presentation of the target game. This suggests that novelty information is used by the mind's eye to select incoming visual information and separate “figure” and “ground”. Mechanisms already present in the template theory can be used to account for this novelty effect.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440340000349

Affiliations: 1: School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK

Publication date: 2005-01-01

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