Author: Jeroen van Dorp
Date: 08:08:59 08/09/01
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On August 09, 2001 at 09:03:38, Graham Laight wrote: >IMO, there IS something new here. > >Even if we thought we knew what was happening inside the head of chess players >of different levels, we've never actually seen it for ourselves. > >Now, thanks to magnetic resonance brain scanners, the researchers have been able >to actually watch the brain processes of GM and amateur chess players while they >are playing. > >What was previously "suspected" is now "known for a fact". > >IMO, this is new. I'm not looking for a petty discussion over old and new :) as my remark was not so much directed at you but at the researcher who told to be "surprised". But your point is very interesting from the viewpoint of methodology and definition of "fact". Earlier research was done in some other ways indeed. In one research example the used the famous eye lamp light following the eye movement of both weak and strong chess players on the chess board. It showed that the GM immediately concentrated on the spot(s) where the action was, and scanned the position much more systematic, while the amateur wandered around (much longer) aimlessly. Another test let GM's and weak chess players reproduce two types of positions: -sensible and normal positions and another with pieces randomly setup. It turned out that the GM could reproduce the normal positions much faster than the amateur, while they did both as bad at the randomly setup positions. From this kind of testing you can also prove something about pattern recognition in the brains. Even if you don't know *what* part of of the brain is operative, you can state with some certainty that a GM and an amateur use their brains differently. A *visual* confirmation strengthens the proof that the brain is operated differently by GM's and weak players, but first you have to know *what* those brain parts exactly do. The confirmation is done in a new and quite convincing way, as now we know the exact routing; but lack of visual evidence doesn't mean we "thought" or "suspected" something before, and couldn't pinpoint a "fact". Just 2 (interested) cents. J.
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