ROLE OF HIGH-LEVEL KNOWLEDGE IN MEMORY FOR CHESS POSITIONS

Current theories of chess expertise assume that experts can recall mea ningful chess positions so well because their encoding and retrieval r elies on prior learning of thousands of specific ''chunks'' of informa tion. However, these theories neglect the role of high-level knowledge that is more abstract than the perceptual chunk. We investigated the role of high-level information in skilled chess memory in three experi ments. In the first two experiments, experienced chess players were pr esented with a high-level verbal description of the position either be fore or after its presentation. If this type of knowledge facilitates the perception and subsequent recall of chess positions, then recall p erformance should be better in the description-before condition in whi ch the information is available at the time of perception. In these tw o experiments, subjects performed better when given the description pr ior to viewing the position, supporting the proposal that a level of k nowledge, beyond that of a set of chunks, is used to perceive a chess position. In the third experiment, subjects reconstructed multiple pos itions (between 1 and 9) immediately after seeing the entire set. Resu lts indicated that experienced players could reconstruct multiple posi tions at a level beyond chance or guessing. Again, these results can b e better explained in terms of high-level conceptual knowledge associa ted with each position than in terms of perceptual chunks.