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Think Like a Grandmaster (Kotov's connections to Cognitive Science)

second blog i see with questions I find interesting. I find that discerning questions is half the job in general.

I am also interested in the many cognitive adventure charactistics of same elements you concern the blog with, but not only about GM, but from total newbies (cases of age a start, developping brain, or adult brains if that matters).

How did GM come about their current cognitive characteristics. As, I find that where they are may not tell where they have been, or that the evolution becomes hard to detect if allready too experienced. But, even that end point is part of the more evolutive questions.. A kind of population data point. (i can't help but find new questions).

One may wonder if also considering non GM in the field might help understand better the GM cognition.
At the very least, control groups. Do you have a good understanding of the degree of psychometrics or testing protocols out there, that coud test some of the hypetheses based on more documentable linguistic based cognitive science hypotheses about chess? I am still reading your blog (and its background pointers).

Keep us up updated as you progress, even about your questions.... as they emerge, evolve, or persist unanswered. Discussions might even be possible from the pool of lichess forum enthusiasts (positive spin), not necessarily either expert in cognitive psychology or full experienced in chess, but still having brains that can be put to push on such wheel of science. Some data points, at the very least. I should say the above question are about my own prior non thorough reading of papers on chess and cognition, what people might already be aware in the chess community. The chunks, intuition, calculation limits, but i found little on the evolution toward intuition learning.

So I am now seeing that you are focusing or including the sensory side at sufficiently low level for me to say that it sounds about right, and time. Closer to neurosciences. I might make a post once done reading.. no ETA.

second blog i see with questions I find interesting. I find that discerning questions is half the job in general. I am also interested in the many cognitive adventure charactistics of same elements you concern the blog with, but not only about GM, but from total newbies (cases of age a start, developping brain, or adult brains if that matters). How did GM come about their current cognitive characteristics. As, I find that where they are may not tell where they have been, or that the evolution becomes hard to detect if allready too experienced. But, even that end point is part of the more evolutive questions.. A kind of population data point. (i can't help but find new questions). One may wonder if also considering non GM in the field might help understand better the GM cognition. At the very least, control groups. Do you have a good understanding of the degree of psychometrics or testing protocols out there, that coud test some of the hypetheses based on more documentable linguistic based cognitive science hypotheses about chess? I am still reading your blog (and its background pointers). Keep us up updated as you progress, even about your questions.... as they emerge, evolve, or persist unanswered. Discussions might even be possible from the pool of lichess forum enthusiasts (positive spin), not necessarily either expert in cognitive psychology or full experienced in chess, but still having brains that can be put to push on such wheel of science. Some data points, at the very least. I should say the above question are about my own prior non thorough reading of papers on chess and cognition, what people might already be aware in the chess community. The chunks, intuition, calculation limits, but i found little on the evolution toward intuition learning. So I am now seeing that you are focusing or including the sensory side at sufficiently low level for me to say that it sounds about right, and time. Closer to neurosciences. I might make a post once done reading.. no ETA.

I agree that thinking about players of all abilities is very interesting. I'm aiming to read more about training techniques and the practices employed by players at a high level to try and link these things to what we know about different cognitive mechanisms. I teach courses in Perception and Neuropsychology and have lots of colleagues who are experts in different aspects of memory and attention - there are a lot of known paradigms for evaluating cognitive and perceptual capabilities, and I'm hoping to find out more about any connections made between these kinds of tasks and the specific demands of learning and playing chess.

I should add: Thanks for reading and for your interest!

I agree that thinking about players of all abilities is very interesting. I'm aiming to read more about training techniques and the practices employed by players at a high level to try and link these things to what we know about different cognitive mechanisms. I teach courses in Perception and Neuropsychology and have lots of colleagues who are experts in different aspects of memory and attention - there are a lot of known paradigms for evaluating cognitive and perceptual capabilities, and I'm hoping to find out more about any connections made between these kinds of tasks and the specific demands of learning and playing chess. I should add: Thanks for reading and for your interest!

I think the ideas i am reading in the Wikipedia and other link about confirmation biases, are about statements held as reasoning output, with some nature of conclusion, or consolidated belief to be held with high confidence in future reasoning, conversation, thinking when having to deal with new experience (data, problem, or discussion, etc...).

In the scientific wheel of progress, one can't wait for true statements to fall off from the sky. Even reproducible experiments of physics have had to first have been part of some scaffolding set of ideas where the experiments could to the very least be conceived as testing hypotheses within such set of ideas or theory.

Sometimes experiment set ups meant to verify a hypothesis would end up showing the competing hypothesis to be true (michaelson-morley experiment i think, e.g.). There had to be some common set of ideas (not the ones competing), for that experiment to be able to speak to both competing hypotheses (the speed of light is a constant in all referentials, or there is some fixed ether medium in the universe , my memory may be failing me on that last bit, about the chronology of such beliefs or their logic connectivity).

Back to chess... individual game thinking. tunnel vision, or blind spots. having a plan or having prepared with some répertoire a bit too much as the hot thing to prepare with (i don't know, never done it, but I guess preconceptions when playing a game, might come from many sources.

Or emerging chess rules throughout history of discovery in chess since recorded games. In the past, some opening would not be played because they were not in that time era dominating school of thought radar conception of what was winning decisions.

I think in all these contexts, we have to keep in mind that we have small brains, and that total knowledge is not instantaneously accessible. That we will never has all the data that tells it all, without even having to formulate questions, which are bound to already contain their lot of biases, or partial grasp of the totality of the reality, by the very choice of vocabulary and limited communication bandwidth.

I think that the problem with confirmation bias leading to a gain of belief in error, is just that last part. We need to be able to formulate new hypotheses.. should we go random combination of all our chosen language elements?

Would it not be better to use inference and intuition (biased by own experience and whole perception filters that go with it) to build candidate statements that may not be true but at least plausible given all our biases? If we also add to that process some mechanism for testing, and allowing amendments or alternative plausible statements which might come from other subjective generators, i mean small brained human persons. Am i not describing the wheel of science? Physics might be the best example of this working without anyone screaming heresy nowadays... Thought experiment coming out of one persons, are matter of argumenation in all seriousness, beyond just being an explanatory device, it also serve officially as an ok mechanism of statement generation.

ok.. so chess plans.. need some help... this is all i am saying. We should include and beaware of the assumptions and be explicit, while still using confirmation bias as search pattern for plausibility, so that the testable experience that such confirmed bias would suggest as appropriate decision, would constitute new data to course correst the held belief that is the bias. I guess making an effort in introspection or self-debate about spelling out our starting preferences or priors, can make this human tendency not an inderhence to advancement but a viable tool.

it usually fails when winning an argument has high stakes, higher than discovering the truth... but chess is not like that.

I think the ideas i am reading in the Wikipedia and other link about confirmation biases, are about statements held as reasoning output, with some nature of conclusion, or consolidated belief to be held with high confidence in future reasoning, conversation, thinking when having to deal with new experience (data, problem, or discussion, etc...). In the scientific wheel of progress, one can't wait for true statements to fall off from the sky. Even reproducible experiments of physics have had to first have been part of some scaffolding set of ideas where the experiments could to the very least be conceived as testing hypotheses within such set of ideas or theory. Sometimes experiment set ups meant to verify a hypothesis would end up showing the competing hypothesis to be true (michaelson-morley experiment i think, e.g.). There had to be some common set of ideas (not the ones competing), for that experiment to be able to speak to both competing hypotheses (the speed of light is a constant in all referentials, or there is some fixed ether medium in the universe , my memory may be failing me on that last bit, about the chronology of such beliefs or their logic connectivity). Back to chess... individual game thinking. tunnel vision, or blind spots. having a plan or having prepared with some répertoire a bit too much as the hot thing to prepare with (i don't know, never done it, but I guess preconceptions when playing a game, might come from many sources. Or emerging chess rules throughout history of discovery in chess since recorded games. In the past, some opening would not be played because they were not in that time era dominating school of thought radar conception of what was winning decisions. I think in all these contexts, we have to keep in mind that we have small brains, and that total knowledge is not instantaneously accessible. That we will never has all the data that tells it all, without even having to formulate questions, which are bound to already contain their lot of biases, or partial grasp of the totality of the reality, by the very choice of vocabulary and limited communication bandwidth. I think that the problem with confirmation bias leading to a gain of belief in error, is just that last part. We need to be able to formulate new hypotheses.. should we go random combination of all our chosen language elements? Would it not be better to use inference and intuition (biased by own experience and whole perception filters that go with it) to build candidate statements that may not be true but at least plausible given all our biases? If we also add to that process some mechanism for testing, and allowing amendments or alternative plausible statements which might come from other subjective generators, i mean small brained human persons. Am i not describing the wheel of science? Physics might be the best example of this working without anyone screaming heresy nowadays... Thought experiment coming out of one persons, are matter of argumenation in all seriousness, beyond just being an explanatory device, it also serve officially as an ok mechanism of statement generation. ok.. so chess plans.. need some help... this is all i am saying. We should include and beaware of the assumptions and be explicit, while still using confirmation bias as search pattern for plausibility, so that the testable experience that such confirmed bias would suggest as appropriate decision, would constitute new data to course correst the held belief that is the bias. I guess making an effort in introspection or self-debate about spelling out our starting preferences or priors, can make this human tendency not an inderhence to advancement but a viable tool. it usually fails when winning an argument has high stakes, higher than discovering the truth... but chess is not like that.