From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 04:51:23 MST
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021209/021209-10.html
Chess and GO no-brainers?
Scans suggests intellectual games miss 'g' spot.
12 December 2002
HELEN PEARSON
Chess has lots in common with IQ problems.
© alamy
The board games chess and GO take practice, not intellect, brain scans of
players suggest1,2 . Intelligence areas appear inactive when people puzzle
over game strategy.
Amateur chess and GO players do not use an area that is believed to house
general intelligence, sometimes called 'g', US and Chinese researchers
have found. "It's a provocative claim," admits team member Sheng He, who
is based at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
The result goes against common sense. Chess is considered one of the most
mentally taxing of pursuits. And the Chinese game GO, in which players use
stones to ring-fence territory on a grid, is thought to be on a cerebral
par.
The challenges involved in the two games have "lots in common" with IQ
problems used to measure 'g', argues John Duncan, who studies intelligence
at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK. He wonders
whether technical hitches obscured activity in intelligence areas in the
scans.
Sheng He concedes that expert players, or those with money riding on a
game, might stretch their minds more. In the test, players pondered the
best move in a non-competitive scenario.
Alternatively, practice and expertise may actually account for a lot of
winning moves. "Most of the stuff we think of as smart is based on
experience," says psychology expert John Gabrieli of Stanford University
in California.
Mind games
Sheng He and his colleagues also tested the assumption that chess
exercises the mind differently from GO.
Chess players select from a limited array of possible moves. By throwing
huge amounts of silicon at the problem, computer programmers can build
powerful machines that rival humans: Deep Fritz drew with world champion
Vladimir Kramnik in October.
Most of the stuff we think of as smart is based on experience
John Gabrieli
Stanford University
But when it comes to GO, where players can make any move across the 19x19
board, man leaves machine trailing. The game is thought to require more
instinct or 'human' strategy: "Sometimes a move just feels more
threatening," explains He.
Brain scans did little to unravel these differences. As expected, GO
players use the right half of their brain, which works out position and
orientation, more than the problem-solving left half used by chess
aficionados.
Otherwise, the mind's tactics look similar. GO must use "different brain
mechanisms we don't understand", concludes He.
References
1. Chen, X et al. A functional MRI study of high-level cognition II.
The game of GO.. Cognitive Brain Research, published online,
doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00206-9 (2002). |Article|
2. Atherton, M. et al. A functional MRI study of high-level cognition.
I. The game of chess. Cognitive Brain Research, published online,
doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00207-0 (2002). |Article|
-- Eugen* Leitl leitl
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