engleski

Do higher-level chess players rely on heuristics in general as well as in chess problem solving?

It has been confirmed that expert chess players solve chess positions in a matter of seconds thanks to their ability to match memorized patterns with positional patterns. This superiority usually manifests itself in a context of familiar chess positions and is reflected in speed and accuracy. Chess experts develop an intuitive approach that is occasionally incorrect, especially when it needs to be suppressed by a more analytical approach (e.g. Einstellung effect). This study investigates the intuitive and heuristic approach developed in chess experts, more specifically, it compares how they solve problems inside and outside their domain of expertise. This study was conducted in several chess clubs across Croatia, and participants were chess players with various levels of expertise. Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was used to assess general problem solving ability, and specially developed chess problems were used for domain-specific problem solving. The results showed that chess players with greater expertise are more efficient in domain-specific tasks but this is unrelated with efficiency in general tasks. Also, participants more accurate in domain-specific tasks were less accurate in general tasks. Our results suggest that expert chess players might transfer their cognitive style in broader problem-solving domains where it is sometimes useless or even harmful.

chess problem solving ; Cognitive Reflection Test ; expert reasoning ; cognitive styles ; dual-process theory of thinking

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