Meta-analysis of age and skill effects on recalling chess positions and selecting the best move

Moxley, Jerad; Charness, Neil

doi:10.3758/s13423-013-0420-5

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…These coefficients are much smaller than the age-related decline for episodic memory (.33), reasoning (.40), and speed of processing (.52). Similar results were found in a recent meta-analysis by Moxley and Charness (2013). The performance on the recall of briefly presented chess positions declines more with age ( r = −.49) than the performance on the choice of the best move ( r = −.28).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Is age really cruel to experts? Compensatory effects of activity.

Vaci¹,

Gula²,

Bilalić³

2015

Psychology and Aging

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Age-related decline may not be as pronounced in complex activities as it is in basic cognitive processes, but ability deterioration with age is difficult to deny. However, studies disagree on whether age is kinder to more able people than it is to their less able peers. In this article, we investigated the "age is kinder to the more able" hypothesis by using a chess database that contains activity records for both beginners and world-class players. The descriptive data suggested that the skill function across age captures the 3 phases as described in Simonton's model of career trajectories: initial rise to the peak of performance, postpeak decline, and eventual stabilization of decline. We therefore modeled the data with a linear mixed-effect model using the cubic function that captures 3 phases. The results show that age may be kind to the more able in a subtler manner than has previously been assumed. After reaching the peak at around 38 years, the more able players deteriorated more quickly. Their decline, however, started to slow down at around 52 years, earlier than for less able players (57 years). Both the decline and its stabilization were significantly influenced by activity. The more players engaged in playing tournaments, the less they declined and the earlier they started to stabilize. The best experts may not be immune to aging, but their previously acquired expertise and current activity enable them to maintain high levels of skill even at an advanced age.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Is age really cruel to experts? Compensatory effects of activity.

Vaci¹,

Gula²,

Bilalić³

2015

Psychology and Aging

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“…Because WM efficiency decreases as a function of age (Birren & Schaie, 1996 ), it is unlikely that experts’ advantage at recalling random material is only due to WM ability. Consistent with this hypothesis, a recent meta-analysis (Moxley & Charness, 2013 ) has shown that performance on the recall of chess positions is negatively associated with age, but positively associated with chess skill. Therefore, experts’ superior ability to recognize small chunks occurring by chance in random material is the most likely explanation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Experts’ memory superiority for domain-specific random material generalizes across fields of expertise: A meta-analysis

Sala

Gobet

2016

Mem Cogn

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Experts’ remarkable ability to recall meaningful domain-specific material is a classic result in cognitive psychology. Influential explanations for this ability have focused on the acquisition of high-level structures (e.g., schemata) or experts’ capability to process information holistically. However, research on chess players suggests that experts maintain some reliable memory advantage over novices when random stimuli (e.g., shuffled chess positions) are presented. This skill effect cannot be explained by theories emphasizing high-level memory structures or holistic processing of stimuli, because random material does not contain large structures nor wholes. By contrast, theories hypothesizing the presence of small memory structures—such as chunks—predict this outcome, because some chunks still occur by chance in the stimuli, even after randomization. The current meta-analysis assessed the correlation between level of expertise and recall of random material in diverse domains. The overall correlation was moderate but statistically significant (), and the effect was observed in nearly every study. This outcome suggests that experts partly base their superiority on a vaster amount of small memory structures, in addition to high-level structures or holistic processing.

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“…Neil Charness has a research arc which began with an interest in chess expertise (e.g., Charness, ) and has lately focused on the cognitive science of aging (e.g., Charness, ) with issues as diverse as barriers to technology use (Charness & Boot, ) and how the way a decision is framed differentially affects decisions make by the young and the elderly. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of his research lines overlap as when he examines the effects of skill and age on selecting the best chess moves (Moxley & Charness, ). The scope of Neil's work is impressive; indeed, he recently joined with, among others, discussant Chris Chabris and author Walter Boot in a massive review by the title and topic of Do “Brain‐Training” Programs Work?…”

Section: Commentators To Game‐xpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Game‐XP: Action Games as Experimental Paradigms for Cognitive Science

Gray

2017

Topics in Cognitive Science

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Why games? How could anyone consider action games an experimental paradigm for Cognitive Science? In 1973, as one of three strategies he proposed for advancing Cognitive Science, Allen Newell exhorted us to "accept a single complex task and do all of it." More specifically, he told us that rather than taking an "experimental psychology as usual approach," we should "focus on a series of experimental and theoretical studies around a single complex task" so as to demonstrate that our theories of human cognition were powerful enough to explain "a genuine slab of human behavior" with the studies fitting into a detailed theoretical picture. Action games represent the type of experimental paradigm that Newell was advocating and the current state of programming expertise and laboratory equipment, along with the emergence of Big Data and naturally occurring datasets, provide the technologies and data needed to realize his vision. Action games enable us to escape from our field's regrettable focus on novice performance to develop theories that account for the full range of expertise through a twin focus on expertise sampling (across individuals) and longitudinal studies (within individuals) of simple and complex tasks.

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Meta-analysis of age and skill effects on recalling chess positions and selecting the best move

Cited by 19 publications

References 20 publications

Is age really cruel to experts? Compensatory effects of activity.

Is age really cruel to experts? Compensatory effects of activity.

Experts’ memory superiority for domain-specific random material generalizes across fields of expertise: A meta-analysis

Game‐XP: Action Games as Experimental Paradigms for Cognitive Science

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