VISUAL SPAN IN EXPERT CHESS PLAYERS:

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VISUAL SPAN IN EXPERT CHESS PLAYERS:
Evidence From Eye Movements
Eyal M. Reingold,1 Neil Charness,2 Marc Pomplun,1 and Dave M. Stampe1
1
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and 2
Florida State University

Abstract—The reported research extends classic findings that after
briefly viewing structured, but not random, chess positions, chess
masters reproduce these positions much more accurately than lessskilled
players. Using a combination of the gaze-contingent window
paradigm and the change blindness flicker paradigm, we documented
dramatically larger visual spans for experts while processing structured,
but not random, chess positions. In addition, in a checkdetection
task, a minimized 3 × 3 chessboard containing a King and
potentially checking pieces was displayed. In this task, experts made
fewer fixations per trial than less-skilled players, and had a greater
proportion of fixations between individual pieces, rather than on
pieces. Our results provide strong evidence for a perceptual encoding
advantage for experts attributable to chess experience, rather than to
a general perceptual or memory superiority.

http://journals.sagepub.com.sci-hub.cc/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00309