| | In 1881, an article called "Memory in Chess Playing," appeared in Scientific American. It stated that wonderful as are the feats of chess-players who can work out a game or a series of games without seeing the board, there is nothing really remarkable in them. When once mastered, the trick is not only fairly easy of performance, but the fact that the process is purely mental rather facilitates than impedes the action of the mind. To the "blindfold" chess player, there is present a mental picture of the board with the pieces in position. He can change the position of the men as easily as he can think, and after he has mastered the difficulty of fixing the mental picture, it is distinctly before him. As a rule, chess-players are mental-picture-readers, and can at pleasure call up any one of several pictures of boards as they last conceived them. The most difficult feat is to play two or three games simultaneously blindfold, the moves made by their opponents being told them in close sequence and their own moves being directed after all the reports of the proceedings of their opponents have been received. (source: Scientific American, Dec 10, 1881, Vol. 45, # 24, p. 378) | | In 1881, an article called "Memory in Chess Playing," appeared in Scientific American. It stated that wonderful as are the feats of chess-players who can work out a game or a series of games without seeing the board, there is nothing really remarkable in them. When once mastered, the trick is not only fairly easy of performance, but the fact that the process is purely mental rather facilitates than impedes the action of the mind. To the "blindfold" chess player, there is present a mental picture of the board with the pieces in position. He can change the position of the men as easily as he can think, and after he has mastered the difficulty of fixing the mental picture, it is distinctly before him. As a rule, chess-players are mental-picture-readers, and can at pleasure call up any one of several pictures of boards as they last conceived them. The most difficult feat is to play two or three games simultaneously blindfold, the moves made by their opponents being told them in close sequence and their own moves being directed after all the reports of the proceedings of their opponents have been received. (source: Scientific American, Dec 10, 1881, Vol. 45, # 24, p. 378) |
| − | In 1893 and 1894, Alfred Binet (1857-1911) conducted perhaps the first psychological studies into chess. He investigated the cognitive facilities of chess masters who could play blindfold chess. He hypothesized that chess depends upon the phenomenological qualities of visual memory. He found that only chess masters were able to play chess successfully without seeing the board and intermediate players found it impossible to play a game of blindfold chess. Binet found that experience, imagination, and memories of abstract and concrete varieties were required in master chess.<ref>[http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/memory_and_chess.htm#:~:text=The%20ability%20to%20recall%20a,the%20more%20than%2020%20pieces. ''Memory and Chess''] by Bill Wall</ref>}} | + | In 1893 and 1894, Alfred Binet (1857-1911) conducted perhaps the first [[psychology|psychological]] studies into chess. He investigated the cognitive facilities of chess masters who could play blindfold chess. He hypothesized that chess depends upon the phenomenological qualities of visual memory. He found that only chess masters were able to play chess successfully without seeing the board and intermediate players found it impossible to play a game of blindfold chess. Binet found that experience, imagination, and memories of abstract and concrete varieties were required in master chess.<ref>[http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/memory_and_chess.htm#:~:text=The%20ability%20to%20recall%20a,the%20more%20than%2020%20pieces. ''Memory and Chess''] by Bill Wall</ref>}} |