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Chess masters show a hallmark of face processing with chess.
Amy L Boggan1, James C Bartlett, Daniel C Krawczyk
1School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 West Campbell Road, GR 4.1, Richardson, TX 75080, USA. aboggan@utdallas.edu
Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
|July 27, 2011
Summary
Expert chess players show face-like processing for chess, suggesting shared cognitive mechanisms. This expertise-dependent processing impacts how they view both chess and faces.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience of expertise
- Visual perception
Background:
- Face processing exhibits unique characteristics, potentially due to specialized brain mechanisms or extensive experience.
- Selective attention failure, measured by the congruency effect, is a key hallmark of face processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether face-processing hallmarks, specifically selective attention failure, extend to domains of extreme expertise.
- To explore the relationship between chess expertise and the congruency effect in both face and chessboard stimuli.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the composite paradigm to measure the congruency effect, a hallmark of selective attention failure.
- Compared 27 chess experts with recreational players and novices on face and chessboard stimuli.
- Analyzed the relationship between chess expertise levels and the magnitude of the congruency effect.
Main Results:
- The congruency effect was equally pronounced for chessboards and faces among chess experts.
- A trade-off was observed: higher chess expertise correlated positively with the chessboard congruency effect but negatively with the face congruency effect.
- These findings indicate expertise-dependent, face-like processing for expert domains.
Conclusions:
- Expertise in a specific domain, like chess, can induce face-like processing mechanisms for stimuli within that domain.
- Face recognition and expert-level recognition of other domains may share common underlying cognitive processes.
- The study challenges the notion of purely face-specific processing, highlighting the role of domain-specific expertise.
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