Recall or evaluation of chess positions revisited: the relationship between memory and evaluation in chess skill

We extend work by Holding and Reynolds (1982) on recall and problem solving with quasirandom chess positions. We tested 17 chess players on both quasirandom and structured chess positions. Consistent with the earlier study, initial recall of quasirandom chess positions is unrelated to chess skill level, and quality of the move selected in subsequent problem solving is related to skill level. However, recall following problem solving is related to chess skill level. These results support the view that pattern recognition processes underlie superior performance by skilled chess players, contrary to the conclusions of Holding and Reynolds (1982). Mechanisms such as long-term working memory retrieval structures (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) or templates (Gobet & Simon, 1996a) could explain the effective encoding of quasirandom positions during problem solving.