Day 31 of 150 Pattern Difficulty 6/10
Chess masters chunk patterns; random pieces erase the edge
Quick answer
Chess masters chunk patterns; random pieces erase the edge. Today's question (Chess expertise and chunking) asks about a finding from Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. in 1973. The correct option is Largely vanishes — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
When briefly shown a real mid-game chess position, expert players reconstruct the board far better than novices. When the same pieces are placed at random, the expertise advantage:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: C — Largely vanishes
Chase & Simon (1973) replicated and extended de Groot's earlier finding: chess masters reconstructed real positions almost perfectly after a five-second view, while novices managed only four to five pieces. With pieces placed randomly, master and novice performance converged. The result is the founding empirical case for expert chunking — masters store positions as roughly seven meaningful chunks (a king-side castle, a typical pawn structure) rather than twenty-five individual pieces. Domain memory advantages are knowledge-based, not raw-capacity gains.
About the source
Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 4(1), 55–81.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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