Long-Term Working Memory for Complex Tasks: Case Blindfold Chess960

Analysis of expert ability to play chess has characterized many significant investigations in cognitive science because objective consequences of each move can be characterized while retaining a near infinite spread of alternatives as the decision tree unfolds. Much of the initial investigations concentrated on areas related to perceptional patterns such as chunks, in part due to the influence of quantitatively oriented studies of short term memory that, historically speaking, were the starting points for the scientific study of cognition in its initial years. This investigation aims at refining concepts beyond short term memory to long term working memory when faced with complexity. It measures the quality of chess move decisions over the first twelve plies when experts play blindfold Fischer Chess960 as compared with blindfold classic chess. In Fischer 960Chess the initial positions of the pieces above the rank of pawns can be altered in such a way as to eliminate most of the three or four piece patterns of chunks familiar to experts over the first 12 plies, without changing the overall tactics and rules of movements enough to significantly diminish the importance of the higher strategic aspects of moves managed by elite players. The overall results are that as ELO ratings progress to a high level such as 2350, transfer of abstract chess knowledge is not only possible but maintains quality of play in the novel Chess960 environment. It is robust without relying mainly on the remembrance of low level perceptual input abstractions centered upon familiar chunks or templates.

• Autores: Bermúdez Barrera, Eduardo
• Tipo de recurso: Doctoral thesis
• Fecha de publicación: 2013
• Institución: Universidad del Norte
• Repositorio: Repositorio Uninorte
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:manglar.uninorte.edu.co:10584/13314
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/10584/13314
• Palabra clave: Ajedrez -- Aspectos psicológicos; Cognición
• Rights: openAccess
• License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/