Mnemonic Chess.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 38

Mnemonic Chess.

(Translated from the French of M. Alfred Binet.)

Persons habituated to intellectual analysis, and particularly scientists, rarely have fine visual images full of colours. They rather make use of abstract visual images, which differ profoundly from the sensations of the eye. It may be concluded from this that these abstract images result from'intellectual improvement, and are in some degree higher in rank than concrete visual images. I now stop. It is time to end this analysis. It is very well to pry into things and examine them with a misroscope, but it is not possible to give an exact account of such a subject as the complexity of intellectual activity. There are, altogether, in unseeing play, powers of concentration, memory, internal vision, and audition ; without taking into account the faculty of calculation, patience, coolness, and many other faculties. Were it possible to see what passes in the head of a player, one would ccc a world of sensations, images, movements, and passions set in motion — an infinite swarm of states of consciousness — of which our most careful descriptions are oaly rough sketches. "It can be compared to a light which illuminates the inward chessboard of the unseeing player. A light, or rather a glimmer, pale and vacillating, which would be quickly extinguished were it not kept alive by all the resources of the player's mind."

One last question remains to be examined. What really is the visual memory of which players make use? Of what stuff is it made? What is it like ? We have just seen that it represents the position in a confused and uncertain manner. In a case where it is exact and certain, how does it show itself .' Can it be called are production of the sensations received by the eyes in looking at the chessboard duiing the contest? Docs the mental vision of the player resemble the real aspect, as a copy would, as an exact painting or a coloured photograph ? It was so thought. For a long time the only document which existei on science was the observation published by M. Tame. He wrote on the subject of the visual memory of players. "It is clear that at every move the chessboard, whole and entire, with the arrangement of the different pieces, is present to them as if in an internal mirror, without which they could nob foresee the consequences of the move just made by an opponent or the one they themselves puiposed making. The visual memory sees the pieces, the square, and the colour exactly as the turner made them— that is to say, he see 3 the chessboard which is in front of his opponent, or has at least an exact idea of it and not of any other chessboard." This observation, as we have had occasion to point out to M. Tame, our eminent master, does not have a general application It is not true of all players. If it is wiehed to give an exact account of their mode, they must be arranged in different categories. The first category compribes players— usually mere amateurs — whose explanations asree with those of M. Tame. These players inform us that they represent to themselves_ the chessboard with all its details exactly as if they see it. Often before beginning a game they look with attention at the board and men. They retain a real mental photograph, in which the chessboard would appear clearly with its black and white squares, and all the pieces with their colours and characteristic forms. Some players who adopt this method represent to themselves the particular board they are in the habit of usjng, and if they U3e men of the regime or of the Staunton pattern, they recall them in those forms to their imagination, and even much mon— they can convey tho individualibation of their mental picturj to the extent of noticing little peculiarities, nuch as defects or notches in the men. M. Place, an amateur, regularly pictures to himself a small travelling chessboard with its hinge.

A Russian general, M. Sokabelsky, who has been blind for some years past, and yet plays chess, continues to represent to himself the forms of the pieces he last used before losing his sight. In describing their impressions these players are apt to fall into an exaggeration of language, by which we should not permit ourselves to be deceived. We willingly compare the mental vision which they have of the board to a real one ; we doubt very much whether the comparison is correct. The visual image differs from the reality in the same way as a portrait differs from a photograph, by the partly voluntary effacement of unimportant details."