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A Critique of Howard's Argument for Innate Limits in Chess Performance or Why We Need an Account Based On Acquired Skill and Deliberate Practice
Author(s) -
Ericsson K. Anders,
Moxley Jerad H.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.2841
Subject(s) - tournament , psychology , argument (complex analysis) , elite , contrast (vision) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , law , computer science , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , combinatorics , politics
Summary In this issue Howard reported that the effect of chess study is surprisingly small among elite chess players, who continue playing more games in international chess tournaments. In contrast, we show that individual differences in chess study are the likely causes of both higher chess ratings and more chess games played in international tournaments, which is often very costly and includes airfare, hotel, and tournament registration fees. The low correlation between his estimates of study time and chess rating is shown to be a consequence of his methodology of relying on a couple of questions in an internet survey rather than the standard methodology in expert performance research involving a 30‐minute interview tracing yearly engagement in many different practice activities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.