Science of Chess: Seeing moves with momentum over the board

@RematchMe said ^

A lot of words not a lot of explanation

Thanks for the feedback! What were some parts that you felt needed more explanation? Happy to try and clear up anything that didn't come through for you.

Okay perhaps that's not the most accurate critique.

I'll try to be more specific:

The organization is poor. If you have to wait 12 paragraphs until you say, so what does this have to do with chess? and you're posting it on a chess site, you have failed.

The astronomy opening anecdote is wordy and not that helpful. No layperson looking into the night sky is trying to deeply predict or calculate where the stars are now. I'd ax it.

Too much jargon not defined clearly. Even something simple like the phrase "seeing momentum" is not that clear.

I question some of the extrapolation from a fine arts motor skill to a turn-based board game, at least for beyond bullet controls. Sometimes it's also unclear how much something like visual or see or momentum is used as a metaphor and how much it's literal. Do you think there's something special about hikarus eyeballs, and of course great players don't even need to look at the board and often choose not to when calculating.

I wonder whether "visual prediction" could just be replaced with "chess understanding", but then we're not saying much in a lot of its uses. Good players automatically understand chess better. People who are better at chess are better at chess. Etc. This is perhaps related to how you are trying to force a dichotomy between "static chess positions" and "how positions change." No one tries to just memorize chess positions and not think about what could happen. If you understand the resources available in a position you automatically understand it's potential for change. Or perhaps a player has a bunch of tactical motifs stored up in this straw manned house of "static" position knowledge, then that player is instantly well equipped to handle "change" or "momentum" regardless of how well the eyes or brain are literally processing visual change.

In short, I question some of the ideas and definitely most of the writing. Sorry if that's too blunt, but I hope the feedback is helpful.

I appreciate that the blog post offers many ideas and cites its sources, even if I am stupid and/or the writing might be hard to follow.

@RematchMe said ^

I question some of the extrapolation from a fine arts motor skill to a turn-based board game, at least for beyond bullet controls. Sometimes it's also unclear how much something like visual or see or momentum is used as a metaphor and how much it's literal. Do you think there's something special about hikarus eyeballs, and of course great players don't even need to look at the board and often choose not to when calculating.

I wonder whether "visual prediction" could just be replaced with "chess understanding", but then we're not saying much in a lot of its uses. Good players automatically understand chess better. People who are better at chess are better at chess. Etc. This is perhaps related to how you are trying to force a dichotomy between "static chess positions" and "how positions change." No one tries to just memorize chess positions and not think about what could happen. If you understand the resources available in a position you automatically understand it's potential for change. Or perhaps a player has a bunch of tactical motifs stored up in this straw manned house of "static" position knowledge, then that player is instantly well equipped to handle "change" or "momentum" regardless of how well the eyes or brain are literally processing visual change.

Indeed, there is plenty to explore here. I tried multiple times reading the blog post... maybe I need an LLM to interpret it for me to understand whether any of these points were explored at all.

Great article discussing some really interesting concepts! I found the link to the demonstration of the Flash-Lag effect particularly interesting. I will be looking forward to any coming articles with great interest. Thank you @NDpatzer !

@RematchMe said ^

Thanks for taking the time to spell out why you didn't like the article. I'll respond below, but some of this is down to stylistic issues I think we just disagree on.

Okay perhaps that's not the most accurate critique.

I'll try to be more specific:

The organization is poor. If you have to wait 12 paragraphs until you say, so what does this have to do with chess? and you're posting it on a chess site, you have failed.

The astronomy opening anecdote is wordy and not that helpful. No layperson looking into the night sky is trying to deeply predict or calculate where the stars are now. I'd ax it.

Nah, these are stylistic choices I made and I like them even if you don't. Thanks for your perspective though - I'm always trying to experiment with how to motivate the studies I talk about.

Too much jargon not defined clearly. Even something simple like the phrase "seeing momentum" is not that clear.

Can you identify some of the jargon you wanted clearer definitions of? The title isn't jargon - it's intended to be something that raises a question for the reader so they want to go see what it means. Again, maybe this didn't work for you, but that's a different issue.

I question some of the extrapolation from a fine arts motor skill to a turn-based board game, at least for beyond bullet controls.
Sometimes it's also unclear how much something like visual or see or momentum is used as a metaphor and how much it's literal. Do you think there's something special about hikarus eyeballs, and of course great players don't even need to look at the board and often choose not to when calculating.

Sorry, what's the "fine arts motor skill" you're referring to? I don't know what this means at all. Also, no, I don't think hikaru's eyeballs are special, but I do think his visual system might be. Great players often have a difficult time looking at the board when calculating because "calculating" for many of them relies on visual imagery. When I say "visual" I pretty much always mean it literally.

I wonder whether "visual prediction" could just be replaced with "chess understanding", but then we're not saying much in a lot of its uses. Good players automatically understand chess better. People who are better at chess are better at chess. Etc. This is perhaps related to how you are trying to force a dichotomy between "static chess positions" and "how positions change." No one tries to just memorize chess positions and not think about what could happen. If you understand the resources available in a position you automatically understand it's potential for change. Or perhaps a player has a bunch of tactical motifs stored up in this straw manned house of "static" position knowledge, then that player is instantly well equipped to handle "change" or "momentum" regardless of how well the eyes or brain are literally processing visual change.

You're using your own straw man argument here: No one is claiming that there are players who only think about static positions. The point of the study is to demonstrate that stronger players automatically advance positions by at least a move or two and that this affects their visual perception and their memory. Weaker players are probably trying to calculate too, but the authors didn't find the same effects. So sure, weaker players have some understanding of the resources in the position, but when you measure their performance in these tasks, it turns out different.

In general, it's always worth asking whether we can attribute effects like these to visual/perceptual processes as opposed to more general cognition, and I do agree that there are a few additional manipulations that would make a stronger case.

In short, I question some of the ideas and definitely most of the writing. Sorry if that's too blunt, but I hope the feedback is helpful.

You could work on being more respectful. Telling someone they "failed" is just useless, for example. All the same, thanks again for saying more than you did in your first comment.

@TobbeF said ^

Great article discussing some really interesting concepts! I found the link to the demonstration of the Flash-Lag effect particularly interesting. I will be looking forward to any coming articles with great interest. Thank you @NDpatzer !

Thank you for reading!

@Toadofsky said ^

I appreciate that the blog post offers many ideas and cites its sources, even if I am stupid and/or the writing might be hard to follow.

@RematchMe said ^

I question some of the extrapolation from a fine arts motor skill to a turn-based board game, at least for beyond bullet controls. Sometimes it's also unclear how much something like visual or see or momentum is used as a metaphor and how much it's literal. Do you think there's something special about hikarus eyeballs, and of course great players don't even need to look at the board and often choose not to when calculating.

I wonder whether "visual prediction" could just be replaced with "chess understanding", but then we're not saying much in a lot of its uses. Good players automatically understand chess better. People who are better at chess are better at chess. Etc. This is perhaps related to how you are trying to force a dichotomy between "static chess positions" and "how positions change." No one tries to just memorize chess positions and not think about what could happen. If you understand the resources available in a position you automatically understand it's potential for change. Or perhaps a player has a bunch of tactical motifs stored up in this straw manned house of "static" position knowledge, then that player is instantly well equipped to handle "change" or "momentum" regardless of how well the eyes or brain are literally processing visual change.

Indeed, there is plenty to explore here. I tried multiple times reading the blog post... maybe I need an LLM to interpret it for me to understand whether any of these points were explored at all.

I mentioned this in a response to RematchMe, but I'll put something here too - It is a good question whether or not this automatic prediction of the next move is happening in the visual system or reflects a process that is more cognitive. This comes up a lot in visual cognition research and it can take multiple experiments to really make the strong case that some effect reflects perceptual processing specifically.

As for the distinction between static board position and dynamics, this is also an empirical question. It could very well be the case that there is no such thing as either one in terms of perception and cognition, and I'd argue that this study offers some initial evidence in favor of this view. Separating static vs. dynamic elements of the position is a starting point for asking questions - it's not intended to be the final word.

The organization is poor. If you have to wait 12 paragraphs until you say, so what does this have to do with chess? And you're posting it on a chess site, you have failed.

Actually, reading this connects well to chess. The organization is fine, too, but it's just a classic problem of reading too fast to get to the point, barely understanding the point, and not taking in the knowledge. It happens to all of us. Quoting the intro, "Prediction is fundamental to how we see, and for strong players it's also part of what they see OTB," and @NDpatzer is right because yes, in the blog, it talks about our own vision of seeing the night sky, pinpointing stars, and forming patterns like the constellations. In astronomy, predicting what lies beyond our solar system is as fascinating and helpful as predicting one's move to match your theory, or in this case, your plan.

The astronomy opening anecdote is wordy and not that helpful. No layperson looking into the night sky is trying to deeply predict or calculate where the stars are now. I'd axe it.

No layperson would do it (unless they're some sort of Greek astronomer from 500 B.C.E), but this too connects to chess, wherein the person—or in this case, the player—has to predict the opponent's plan and to calculate how to defend or counterattack. It matches quite well.

Too much jargon is not defined clearly. Even something simple like the phrase "seeing momentum" is not that clear.

I will agree with you on this one, as most of the jargon needs to be understood properly to see the message. And I get that, knowing that @NDpatzer is a professor of psychology at the North Dakota State University, has a PhD, and especially since his areas of study are Visual & Cognitive Neuroscience, which this blog is clearly all about.

I question some of the extrapolation from a fine arts motor skill to a turn-based board game, at least beyond bullet controls. Sometimes it's also unclear how much something like visual, see, or momentum is used as a metaphor and how much it's literal. Do you think there's something special about Hikaru's eyeballs, and of course, great players don't even need to look at the board and often choose not to when calculating.

Actually, there's nothing special about Hikaru's eyeballs, but it's in the way he thinks. He can clearly and quickly calculate on a mental board and very well set that plan to use (especially if he can predict an opponent well). Speaking of which, visually looking at a board is much easier aside from just using your mental one (and fumbling with coordinates, which may affect the game). When you play chess and get that tempo on your opponent's pieces, positions, etcetera, you gain momentum. Now, what does "seeing momentum" mean? Well, for me, it's like looking ahead to see if you will gain momentum on your game, and you try to make that happen and maybe even make it better. That is my understanding of this, though I find it difficult to translate as well, and I do really get it.

I wonder whether "visual prediction" could just be replaced with "chess understanding", but then we're not saying much in a lot of its uses. Good players automatically understand chess better. People who are better at chess are better at chess. Etc. This is perhaps related to how you are trying to force a dichotomy between "static chess positions" and "how positions change." No one tries to just memorize chess positions and not think about what could happen. If you understand the resources available in a position, you automatically understand its potential for change. Or perhaps a player has a bunch of tactical motifs stored up in this straw manned house of "static" position knowledge, then that player is instantly well-equipped to handle "change" or "momentum" regardless of how well the eyes or brain are literally processing visual change.

I say it's both. I would say that chess understanding is as important as visual prediction, but visual prediction is just all things in general, which I would have agreed to swap with chess understanding, because this platform is all about chess, isn't it? But I wouldn't say he's forcing a dichotomy, but I think he meant to tell the difference between the two. Understanding the resources, the position's potential for change, is just taking initiative and using your own mind to navigate this and to understand it. If the player, in contrast, already has these motifs, has this storage of knowledge, then he's simply using understanding to take initiative. It's the same, it's different, and it's still the same. But does anyone really think only about static positions? Stockfish, maybe, but it's a bot.

In short, I question some of the ideas and definitely most of the writing. Sorry if that's too blunt, but I hope the feedback is helpful.

Not to be blunt, either, because I respect you, but I would improve the tone of your critique, as it's quite intimidating and needs a little bit more respect for the author. If I were to be blunt, I would just straight up say "improve your manners", but I myself have manners and my own etiquette, so I told you gently. But congratulations, it's better than that one-liner.