Dr. Matthias Heger wrote:
...
I think humans represent chess by a huge number of **visual**
patterns. The chessboard is 8x8 squares. Probably, a human considers
all 2x2, 3x3 4x4 and even more subsets of the chessboard at once
beside the possible moves. We see if a pawn is alone or if a knight is
at the edge of the board. We see if the pawns are in a diagonal and
much more. I would guess that the human brain observes many thousands
of visual patterns in a single position.
This is the only explanation for me why the best chess players still
have a little chance to win against computers.
E...
-Matthias
"Visual" is not exactly correct, at least not for the single moderately
skilled player that I can internally observe. The patterns exist, and
they are spatially represented, but as "visual" they are definitely
cartoonish with accompanying annotations (see also this possibility,
etc.). Actually I don't see the pieces, but only their directions of
movement and capture, and if I particularly attend to one section, I
will hear the name of the piece before a cartoon representation of it
becomes conscious. This abbreviated representation allows me to
consider many more position changes than would a more explicit imagery.
Actually each position represents the entire board centered around a
piece of interest, but parts of the board of less relevance to the
actions being considered are "fuzzed out", so that the same concepts can
be used with many different board positions. And for any one position,
when considering moving a piece a particular "image" of this kind
appears, and many will be scanned when contemplating a move.
Now I'm not a master, or even a rated player. But I suspect that this
kind of thing is also used by such people, only that it becomes so
practiced that it becomes invisible. Even as it is I'm frequently not
even aware of evaluating very poor moves except when the game is towards
the end, and my position is declining. Then I tend to evaluate more
consciously (probably just considering each move more extensively). And
I still barely consider pieces that, e.g., I can't move. During the
middle game I'm occasionally aware of considering them in a hypothetical
manner ("Well, if I could get that pawn out of the way, then..."), but I
don't notice that happening as much during the end game. Probably such
moves have already been considered and discarded.
Note that the image isn't a rectangular pattern. What's contained
within it is based on relevance, and it isn't exactly visual, merely
spatial. A bishop's move is seen as a sweeping diagonal, probably a
vectoral representation. And adjacent squares aren't considered (aren't
parts of the image) unless I'm considering stopping the bishop on one of
those squares (at which point anything that could threaten it becomes
relevant) ... but it isn't a part of the original image. The bishop's
move just "extends until blocked".
-------------------------------------------
agi
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