APPERCEPTION AND IMAGERY IN BLINDFOLD CHESS

Apperception constructs functional and ''meaningful'' mental represent ations. These representations are often built on mental images. Hence it is rational to assume that the contents of some parts of images may be functionally more important than others. This means that the cogni tive processing of some parts of the image is more effective than for others. To extract this preferential structure, which we call the func tional figure in mental images, five experiments were conducted on bli ndfold chess imagery. We showed that blindfold chess players have much better recall of functionally significant than of functionally insign ificant areas of chess positions. Thus, of the various mental represen tations of chess board areas, the functionally more significant areas are better represented than others.