Chunking

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Chunking,
a term in cognitive science where individual units of information are structured into larger meaningful units to improve memory performance. The concept of chunking was first put forward in 1956 by psychologist George A. Miller in The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, where he researched how many numbers we can reliably remember a few minutes after we've been told them only once.

Chunking in Chess

In chess and computer chess, chunking is about to recognize relevant patterns of a chess position. A chunk is a group of pieces, in some sense a semantic unit, a meaningful pattern that is recognized at a glance by a chess master. Reasoning about a position in terms of such chunks as atomic units, instead of individual pieces, reduces the complexity of a position from, say, 30 units to about 7 units, assuming that each chunk consists of 4 or 5 pieces. Pieces within a single chunk are closely related in terms of attack- and defense properties of the pieces as well as common color, type and proximity.

Chunking Hypothesis

In chess, the Chunking Hypothesis was researched in various cognitive experiments by Adriaan de Groot and others, where chess masters were able to reconstruct a chess position from a albeit unknown chess game almost perfectly after viewing it for only 5 sec, while players below the master level had sharp drop off in this ability. However, this result could not be attributed to the masters’ generally superior memory ability, since masters had almost the same difficulty to reconstruct the positions constructed by placing the same numbers of pieces randomly on the board.

Chess Patterns

• Evaluation Patterns

Fianchetto

Outposts

Returning Bishop

Trapped Pieces

• King Pattern

King Safety Pattern

Mate at a Glance

• Knight Pattern
• Pawn Pattern and Properties

See also

• CHREST
• CHUMP
• Chunker
• Cognition
• Design Principles
• EPAM
• MAPP
• Pattern Recognition
• Perceiver
• Rookie

Publications

1920 ...

• I.N. Djakov (1926). Psihologia Shakhmatnoi Igry. (Chess psychology) edited by N.B. Petrovskij and P.A. Rudik, Moscow: Avtorov
• I.N. Djakov (1927). Psychologie des Schachspiels. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & Leipzig, reprinted 2001 Bigli-Press, amazon

1940 ...

• Adriaan de Groot (1946). Het denken van den Schaker, een experimenteel-psychologische studie. Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam; N.V. Noord-Hollandse Uitgevers Maatschappij, Amsterdam. Translated with the help of George Baylor, with additions, (in 1965) as Thought and Choice in Chess. Mouton Publishers, The Hague. ISBN 90-279-7914-6.

1950 ...

• George Armitage Miller (1956). The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Psychological Review, Vol. 101, No. 2, pdf
• Edward Feigenbaum (1959). An Information Processing Theory of Verbal Learning. RAND Paper » EPAM

1960 ...

• Adriaan de Groot (1965, 1978). Thought and Choice in Chess. Mouton & Co Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands. ISBN 90-279-7914-6, amazon, google
• Adriaan de Groot (1966). Perception and Memory versus Thought: Some Old Ideas and Recent Findings. Problem Solving: Research, Method, and Theory (ed. B. Kleinmuntz), pp. 19-50. John Wiley, New York.
• Herbert Simon, Michael Barenfeld (1968). Information Processing in the Perception of Chess Positions. Carnegie Mellon University, Paper #127
• Herbert Simon, Michael Barenfeld (1969). Information-processing analysis of perceptual processes in problem solving. Psychological Review, Vol. 76, No. 5

1970 ...

• Albert Zobrist (1970). A Pattern Recognition Program which uses a Geometry-Preserving Representation of Features. Technical Report #85, pdf
• James R. Slagle, Richard C. T. Lee (1971). Application of game tree searching techniques to sequential pattern recognition. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 14, No. 2
• William Chase, Herbert Simon (1973). The Mind’s Eye in Chess. Visual Information Processing: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Carnegie Psychology Symposium (ed. W. G. Chase), pp. 215-281. Academic Press, New York. Reprinted (1988) in Readings in Cognitive Science (ed. A.M. Collins). Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA.
• William Chase, Herbert Simon (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 1, pdf
• Herbert Simon, Kevin J. Gilmartin (1973). A Simulation of Memory for Chess Positions. Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 5 » MAPP
• Herbert Simon, William Chase (1973). Skill in Chess. American Scientist, Vol. 61, No. 4, reprinted (1988) in Computer Chess Compendium
• Albert Zobrist, Frederic Roy Carlson (1973). An Advice-Taking Chess Computer. Scientific American, Vol. 228, No. 6
• Herbert Simon (1974). How big is a chunk? Science, Vol. 183, pdf
• Ruslan Hajiev (1975). Experimental Studies of Human Decision-Making and its Simulation by Situation Control Technique.. (on the basis of a chess endgame). IJCAI 1975, Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR, pdf
• Judith S. Reitman (1976). Skilled Perception in Go: Deducing Memory Structures from Inter-Response Times. Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 8, No, 3
• Neil Charness (1976). Memory for Chess Positions: Resistance to Interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 641-653 » MAPP
• Peter W. Frey, Peter Adesman (1976). Recall Memory for Visually Presented Chess Positions. Memory & Cognition, Vol. 4, No. 5, 541-547
• Jürg Nievergelt (1977). Information content of chess positions. ACM SIGART Newsletter 62, pp. 13-14. Reprinted as: Information content of chess positions: Implications for game-specific knowledge of chess players, pp. 283-289. Machine Intelligence 12 (eds. Jean Hayes Michie, Donald Michie, E. Tyugu). Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. ISBN 0-19-853823-5.
• Ivan Bratko, Danny Kopec, Donald Michie (1978). Pattern-Based Representation of Chess Endgame Knowledge. The Computer Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 149-153. pdf

1980 ...

• Ivan Bratko and Donald Michie (1980). A Representation of Pattern-Knowledge in Chess Endgames. Advances in Computer Chess 2
• Zdenek Zdráhal, Ivan Bratko, Alen Shapiro (1981). Recognition of Complex Patterns Using Cellular Arrays. The Computer Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3
• Murray Campbell, Hans Berliner (1983). A Chess Program That Chunks. AAAAI 1983
• Hans Berliner, Murray Campbell (1984). Using Chunking to Solve Chess Pawn Endgames. Artifical Intelligence, Vol. 23, No. 1
• John E. Laird, Paul S. Rosenbloom, Allen Newell (1984). Towards Chunking as a General Learning Mechanism. AAAI 1984
• Edward Feigenbaum, Herbert Simon (1984). EPAMlike models of recognition and learning. Cognitive Science, Vol. 8, 305-336, pdf
• Ivan Bratko, Peter Tancig, Simona Tancig (1984). Detection of Positional Patterns in Chess. ICCA Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2 (abridged version)
• Pertti Saariluoma (1984). Coding problem spaces in chess: A Psychological study. Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium 23/1984, amazon
• Ivan Bratko, Peter Tancig, Simona Tancig (1984,1986). Detection of Positional Patterns in Chess. Advances in Computer Chess 4 (full paper)
• Albrecht Heeffer, Marc Leman (1986). Chunking as a Method for Concept Acquisition. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence
• Murray Campbell (1988). Chunking as an Abstraction Mechanism. Ph.D. thesis, Carnegie Mellon University

1990 ...

• Pertti Saariluoma (1990). Chess players' search for task relevant cues: Are chunks relevant? In: David Brogan: Visual search. pp. 115-121
• Michael George, Jonathan Schaeffer (1990). Chunking for Experience. ICCA Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3
• Michael George, Jonathan Schaeffer (1991). Chunking for Experience. Advances in Computer Chess 6
• Steven Walczak, Douglas D. Dankel II (1993). Acquiring Tactical and Strategic Knowledge with a Generalized Method for Chunking of Game Pieces. International Journal of Intelligent Systems, Vol. 8, No. 2
• Fernand Gobet, Peter Jansen (1994). Towards a Chess Program Based on a Model of Human Memory. Advances in Computer Chess 7
• Stephen Flinter, Mark Keane ( 1995). On the automatic generation of case libraries by chunking chess games. in Manuela Veloso, Agnar Aamodt (eds.) Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1010, Springer
• Pertti Saariluoma (1995). Chess players' thinking. Routledge. amazon
• Fernand Gobet, Herbert Simon (1996). Recall of random and distorted positions: Implications for the theory of expertise. Memory & Cognition, 24, 493-503.
• Fernand Gobet, Herbert Simon (1996). Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 159-163, word reprint.
• Fernand Gobet, Herbert Simon (1998). Expert chess memory: Revisiting the chunking hypothesis. Memory, 6, 225-255, pdf
• Fernand Gobet (1998). Memory for the Meaningless: How Chunks Help Proceedings of the 20th Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

2000 ...

• Fernand Gobet, Herbert Simon (2000). Five Seconds or Sixty? Presentation Time in Expert Memory. Cognitive Science, Vol. 24, No. 4
• Pertti Saariluoma (2001). Chess and content-oriented psychology of thinking. Psicológica, 22, 143-164, pdf
• Pertti Saariluoma, Tei Laine (2001). Novice construction of chess memory. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Vol. 42, No. 2
• Tristan Caulfield (2004). Acquiring and Using Knowledge in Computer Chess. Undergraduate Dissertation, University of Bath, pdf
• Fernand Gobet (2005). Chunking Models of Expertise: Implications for Education. Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 2
• Tristan Caulfield, Joanna J. Bryson (2005). Chess by Imitation. Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, pdf
• Han L.J. van der Maas, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers (2005). A psychometric analysis of chess expertise. University of Amsterdam, pdf
• Takeshi Ito, Hitoshi Matsubara, Reijer Grimbergen (2005). Chunking in Shogi: New Findings. Advances in Computer Games 11
• Richard L. Smith, Fernand Gobet, Peter Lane (2007). An Investigation into the Effect of Ageing on Expert Memory with CHREST. UKCI 2007
• Guillermo Campitelli, Fernand Gobet, Kay Head, Mark Buckley, Amanda Parker (2007). Brain localisation of memory chunks in chessplayers. International Journal of Neuroscience, 117, 1641-1659.
• Alexandre Linhares, Paulo Brum (2007). Understanding our understanding of strategic scenarios: What role do chunks play. Cognitive Science, 31, 989-1007. pdf
• Merim Bilalić, Fernand Gobet (2007). They do what they are told to do: The influence of instruction on (chess) expert perception - Commentary on Linhares and Brum (2007). Cognitive Science. pdf
• Fernand Gobet (2007). Chunk hierarchies and retrieval structures: Comments on Saariluoma and Laine. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 42. pdf
• Peter Lane, Fernand Gobet, Richard L. Smith (2008). Attention mechanisms in the CHREST cognitive architecture. Proc. of the 5th International Workshop on Attention in Cognitive Systems
• Roy W. Roring III (2008). Reviewing Expert Chess Performance: A Production-Based Theory of Chess Skill. Ph.D. thesis, advisor Neil Charness, Florida State University
• Andrew Cook (2008). Chunk Learning and Move Prompting: Making Moves in Chess. Technical Report CSR-08-12, University of Birmingham
• Jana Krivec, Matej Guid, Ivan Bratko (2009). Identification and Characteristic Descriptions of Procedural Chunks. ComputationWorld conference: Cognitive 2009. pdf
• Richard L. Smith, Fernand Gobet, Peter Lane (2009). Checking chess checks with chunks: A model of simple check detection. ICCM 2009

2010 ...

• Merim Bilalić, Peter McLeod, Fernand Gobet (2011). Expert and “novice” problem solving strategies in chess: Sixty years of citing de Groot (1946). Thinking and Reasoning, Vol. 14, No. 4
• Fernand Gobet (2018). The Psychology of Chess. The Psychology of Everything, Routledge

2020 ...

• Jana Krivec, Matej Guid (2020). The influence of context on information processing. Cognitive Processing, Vol. 21, No. 2

External Links

• Chunking (psychology) from Wikipedia
• Language acquisition | Chunking from Wikipedia
• Chunking (disambiguation) from Wikipedia
• Chunking (computing) from Wikipedia
• Chunking (writing) from Wikipedia
• Chunking (division) from Wikipedia
• Shallow parsing from Wikipedia
• Pumpkin chunking from Wikipedia
• What Is Chunking? by Kendra Cherry, About.com
• Expertise in Memory - A Guide To Expertise by Victor Long, Chandra Singh and David Snitkof, Brown University

Expertise in Memory - Chunking Theory

Expertise in Memory - Evidence for Chunking Theory

Expertise in Memory - Chess Expertise

Expertise in Memory - Chess Expertise - History: Building up the literature

• Joe Pass and Paulinho da Costa - Que Que Há/Gentle Rain, Tudo Bem! (1978), YouTube Video

feat. Oscar Castro Neves, Octavio Bailly Jr, Don Grusin, Claudio Slon

References

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