Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2008 Reviewing Expert Chess Performance: A Production Based Theory of Chess Skill Roy W. (Roy Winn) Roring Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES REVIEWING EXPERT CHESS PERFORMANCE: A PRODUCTION- BASED THEORY OF CHESS SKILL By ROY W. RORING III A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008 The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Roy Roring defended on July 14, 2008. Neil Charness Professor Directing Dissertation Bud Fennema Outside Committee Member K. Anders Ericsson Committee Member Colleen Kelley Committee Member Joyce Ehrlinger Committee Member Approved: Janet Kistner, Chair, Psychology Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii In many ways this work culminates many years of education through which I have become the person I am today. Therefore, I would like to dedicate this work to my mother and father who always provided me the love, the encouragement, the opportunity, and the will to succeed and grow—the real purpose of any education. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My journey into graduate school was largely influenced by specific questions, and my arrival at FSU a result of seeking out the experts. I consider myself very lucky. Many graduate students do not find an advisor who not only exhibits wisdom and practicality, but also understands how to create the right environment for independent thought. I cannot easily express how often I have been grateful that Neil Charness is my mentor and how many times his guidance and his patience helped me during my tenure here. He has always directed me to new opportunities and his good nature has made graduate school a very rewarding experience. I have also been priviledged to work closely with Anders Ericsson. There is no doubt that he has influenced my thinking tremendously. I will always remember our countless discussions and debates and how they provided the excellent opportunities for feedback and improvement in scientific thought. It was my outstanding good fortune to interact with such powerful thinkers. I will also never forget how I have met some of the best friends of my life in the last several years. In particular I would like to acknowledge Edward Cokely, Mark Fox, Ainsley Mitchum, and Katy Nandagopal—I have learned so much from each of you and will always cherish your friendship. And finally I could never forget to mention my parents, Winn and Tibbie Roring, their unwavering love and support makes everything possible. After many years of education, I still can only hope to one day be as wise. This work was supported in part by NIA grant 1 PO1 AG17211-06 and NIA grant 5R01 AG13969. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables .................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................... viii Abstract .......................................................................................... ix 1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................... 1 General Abilities............................................................................. 3 Chunking Theory............................................................................ 10 SEarch Evaluation and Knowledge................................................ 20 Long Term Working Memory.......................................................... 24 Template Theory............................................................................ 27 A New Theory of Chess Skill.......................................................... 31 2. STUDY 1: Predictions for Search and Practice Variables................. 44 Study 1: Method............................................................................. 48 Study 1: Results............................................................................. 50 Study 1: Discussion ....................................................................... 55 3. STUDY 2: Predicting Search-Skill Correlations for Specific Problems 57 Study 2: Method............................................................................. 58 Study 2: Results............................................................................. 58 Study 2: Discussion ....................................................................... 62 4. STUDY 3: Historic Increases in Chess Skill...................................... 63 Study 3: Method............................................................................. 64 Study 3: Results............................................................................. 66 Study 3: Discussion ....................................................................... 70 5. GENERAL DISCUSSION.................................................................. 70 APPENDICES .................................................................................... 72 A INFORMED CONSENT FORM....................................................... 72 B IRB APPROVAL LETTER............................................................... 73 v REFERENCES .................................................................................... 74 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .................................................................... 85 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Example Search Tree .............................................................. 45 Table 2: Search Correlations and Descriptive Statistics........................ 51 Table 3: Pattern Matrix for Factor Analysis of Search Parameters ........ 52 Table 4: Pattern Matrix for Current Practice Activities ........................... 54 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Productions and Memory Representation in PRESTO .......... 36 Figure 2: Problem 12.............................................................................. 60 Figure 3: Declining Tactical Error Rates of World Champions .............. 67 Figure 4: Serious Age Varies with Tactical Error Rate .......................... 68 Figure 5: Serious Age as a Function of Accumulated Solitary Study..... 69 viii ABSTRACT Explaining expert chess players’ dramatically superior skill represents an outstanding unsolved theoretical problem for cognitive psychology. This review extends and re-evaluates the current state of theories on chess skill, highlighting the strengths and weakness of various theories ranging from general abilities to chunking theory to more modern variants. After describing limitations with earlier approaches, a new theory is described based on Productions RElating STored Organizations (PRESTO) of chess pieces in memory. I discuss how this theoretical framework, extending and elaborating Ericsson and Kintsch’s (1995) proposal for long-term working memory in chess, addresses established empirical findings, makes testable new predictions, and how it is related in several respects to the earlier theories. These predictions are examined in three studies, illustrating how the model can explain characteristics of chess problem solving and planning behavior as well as a historic increase at the highest level of skill. ix INTRODUCTION Near the beginning of the 20th century, psychological studies began to investigate the high levels of skill demonstrated by individuals in real-world domains (e.g., Bryan & Harter, 1899; Binet, 1894). These studies discovered evidence for superior performance levels beyond those observed in more traditional laboratory settings. Feats of expertise, such as playing multiple games of chess blindfolded or mentally computing products of very large numbers, are often difficult to explain using theories of learning and cognition derived from more simplistic tasks. One virtue of expertise research is that it pushes cognitive theory beyond its comfort zone, forcing theories developed from human performance on unpracticed laboratory tasks to accommodate and explain the extreme achievements of certain individuals. As this review will suggest, during the last four decades, early models of cognition struggled to handle the empirical findings from research on expert-performance. Research on expertise has subsequently led to improved methodologies for understanding human performance in a variety of domains ranging from ballet dancing to bridge play to wine tasting. However, after early studies, such as Binet (1894), Bryan and Harter (1899) and Cleveland (1907), over half a century passed before more refined attempts to investigate high levels of skill evolved. In his pioneering research, de Groot (1965/1978) investigated the thought processes and memory performance of chess grandmasters and club-level chess players and described many qualities of the thinking and search characteristic of these high levels of achievement. His work was originally published in 1946, and in English in 1965, when the cognitive revolution was in full bloom. With psychology returning to the study of mental thought processes and to a computer metaphor of human cognition, many researchers, such as Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, and other prominent scientists, sought a model organism for cognitive psychology, much like the fruit fly (drosophila) is a model organisms for genetics.