Utterberg Cary. The Dynamics of Chess Psychology

Chess Digest, Inc., 1994. — 219 p. — ISBN: 978-875682561.Chess has one of the richest legacies of any game or sport. Praised for its intellectual depth, chess has well-documented cognitive and educational benefits for players. Psychological scholarship has increasingly turned to the game to reveal how expertise in chess relates to common abilities and tasks in life.Chess is the primary arena for studying expertise, psychologist Christopher Chabris says. The advantages of chess include a wide range of abilities and tasks for analysis, ecological validity (the extent to which research reflects real life), historical expert performances, the ability to compare human performance to computer models and artificial intelligence research programs, and a statistical rating system (Elo) for comparing skill levels among players.Few domains are as effective as chess in highlighting how topics like mental imagery and prior knowledge relate to problem-solving. By looking at how strong chess players approach situations, researchers can better understand cognitive processes like perception, memory, and visualization as well as their implications.