The Analogies of Chess Experts

This study investigated how chess expertise influences analogical reasoning by examining differences between advanced players and novices in an analogy generation task. Sixty-seven participants (32 advanced players, 35 novices) created analogous positions for ten different chess scenarios. They provided additional information about the source of their analogies (memory vs. fantasy), along with ratings of confidence and satisfaction. Results revealed that advanced players generated significantly more analogies (56.88%) than novices (33.43%). Advanced players were more likely to retrieve analogies from memory (63.7%) rather than to create them from fantasy (36.3%), unlike novices, who created analogies mostly from fantasy (65.8%). Compared to novices, advanced players created analogies with less perceptual overlap, including lower pixel-by-pixel overlap (M = 0.78 vs. 0.81), fewer pieces (M = 7.22 vs. 11.10), and lower non-empty pixel-by-pixel overlap (M = 0.09 vs. 0.22). Finally, advanced players reported higher confidence and satisfaction with their analogies. The two subjective measures of second-order analogical mapping were strongly predicted by chess expertise and structural similarity as assessed by various AI models, while perceptual similarity explained to a less degree the confidence, but not the satisfaction. The findings of this study provide support to the notion that chess expertise involves a cognitive shift toward abstract schemas, which enable the transfer of solutions from analogous episodes, rather than merely recognising patterns. Thus, these results challenge the traditional chunking-based accounts of chess expertise while supporting theoretical models that emphasise structural relationships in expert analogical reasoning.