Pattern recognition isn't a chess patent - it's the way the mind works .... just so happens that psychologists can study it easily in the chess context...
Michael Jordan, trying to play baseball, was a bug on the windshield of Pattern Recognition. He just hadn't seen the 50,000 sliders that made it possible for his brain to process it subconsciously.
As many years as I've studied pattern recognition ... and baseball ... I haven't gotten my mind around what it is that allows Mike Trout and Bryce Harper (and Miller and Franklin) to hit well without it (with much less of it). Any ideas?
Or, how do you PREDICT that Nick Franklin is going to need so much less of it, and Justin Smoak so much more of it? Is it POSSIBLE to predict that, when they're both in AAA?
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Nicely done Spec ... when I get back to the 'puter, will jump into the mosh pit with elbows high :- )
Note: I've worked on this series for so long that now there's a new issue of Sports Illustrated out, but the article in question is still online.
With exquisite timing (at least with respect to what I was meaning to write about Dominic Leone), Sports Illustrated published a major article (also a book excerpt) about how much of the mental aspect of sports performance relates to the ability to anticipate a pattern of events before they happen.
In other words: it's not so much "reaction time" (the author, SI journalist David Epstein, is pretty convincing on that point) but "knowing what you will be reacting to ... before it happens."
By good fortune ... the article is online. [Note that's it's three pages.]
You go read it, and while I'm waiting I'll listen to "Waiting for Something" by Nada Surf.
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Welcome back!
Yes, that was an extended discussion of CHESS! Is Dr. Detecto actually a writer for SI?
Probably not, but baseball, chess and sports performance all in one article is a pretty odd/cool coincidence.
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So what can we conclude?
We've got a two-step process here:
- Mentally process where the pitch is going to be when it meets the bat
- Physically get the bat to that place in a manner by which to hit it with authority
From the chess portion:
- "[The psychologists] tested the players' recall for chessboards that contained random arrangements of pieces that could never occur in a game. When the players were given five seconds to study the random assortments and then asked to re-create them, the recall advantages of the masters disappeared. Suddenly their memories were just like those of average players."
Therefore, in-his-prime Pujols couldn't hit a softball thrown at 68 mph.
Why not? Because the chess masters can only process chess boards that look like actual chess games.
Say some Average Joes -- Doc, Gordon and me (well, maybe just me) -- stepped into the batter's box against a pro. As the pitch comes to the plate, we don't know the difference between the random chess board and an actual game. It's all just random squares and miniature horse heads to us. And that's how Pujols and his pals were against Jennie Finch.
But the master knows what the pattern means, and how to react to it, and how to react to it without having to think about reacting to it.
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But then ... in sports (but not in chess) you also have to have the physical gifts to actually carry out the reaction.
And that raises some interesting questions.
Comments
For those of you interested in going even DEEPER into the science, I provide this link with a very scientific approach to training pitch recognition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTQeWJrpVrw
I read that article on Friday and almost posted about it then. One of the great sports articles that I've ever read.
I hope you all find the time to read it.
moe
Excuse me if I get this wrong, I read the SI article a couple of days ago. I wanted to respond to this comment, specifically about Smoak v. Franklin, because of an article I read maybe two years ago concerning Smoak. I couldn't find the archive, but after being interviewed, Smoak mentioned that during the offseason (the one prior to 2011 I believe) he had INCREASED his training regimen and workout program to like 3 or 4 times a week. This struck me as soon as I read your comment because when you think about how the article explained that it requires 10,000 hours generally to become an expert at something and some amount of that needs to be indivualized private practice to increase your expertise even further, it might provide the clue in distinguishing your Smoaks from your Miller/Franklins early on.
If Smoak increased his individual training regimine to 3 or 4 times a week it stands to reason that previously his regimine was like 2 or 3 times a week or less. Contrast that with Franklin and Miller who, if the rumors are true, are the quintessential gym rats (presuming they work out or train every single day during the offseason, or at least more often than Smoak) then it stands to reason they are gettin the requisite individualized hours and overall hours before Smoak attains them. I disclaim that I have no actual knowledge of either Smoak's or Miller's/Franklin's true training regimines but am illustrating a point that jumped out to me thinking about the article and the question you posed. Presumably it would seem that if you can figure out which one plays the "violin" alone in their room after school more (to borrow an example from the SI article), you can predict which one will blossom sooner.
On a side note, while its still fresh in my mind, based on that article, I couldn't help but wonder if training the Condor and Ackley to sing to themselves while in the batters box wouldn't help improve their results. i am likening them to the example in the article where psychologists have found that professional golfers can get out of putting slumps by singing to themselves as it shuts down the frontal lobe of the brain that's causing them to over think, and activating the subconscious part of the brain which unleashes their expertise. As both Ackley and Saunders appear to me to be over thinking to much this could help, especially for Ackley who is the Greek God of contact, but the King's jester at monopolizing on early in count meatballs served by pitchers.
Anyway, fascininating stuff. Have been enjoying this week's articles.