ABSTRACT
Chess provides a striking example of how knowledge can influence perception. When a novice and a master look at a position, there is a profound difference in their experience. The master sees the power of the pieces: he immediately knows which squares the bishop attacks; no conscious thought is required. More complicated matters can also be perceptual. A master can immediately perceive that a square is weak, a bishop is bad, a pawn is backward, and a queen is pinned. He can perceive all this in one or two seconds of scanning the board, while the novice has only taken in the fact that chess is being played on the board rather than checkers. […] A master cannot see the bishop on e3 as a chunk of dead wood, any more than you can look at your best friend’s face and see a meaningless matrix of colors and shapes. The master once saw the board like this, but now there is no going back (unless there is some unfortunate neurological event). The best a master can do to understand a novice’s perspective is to look at a board on which the pieces have been haphazardly placed, without any regard for chess rules or chess strategy.
