Alfred Binet and Chess

Alfred Edouard Louis Binet (1857-1911) was a French psychologist (he actually had a Law degree and
taught himself psychology) who invented the first practical intelligence test, the Binet-Simon scale
(1905). He also wrote the first work on the psychology of chess, though he was not a strong chess
player. He published roughly 200 books and articles on psychology. He is considered the father of
intelligence and the founder of French experimental psychology.

In 1892, at the suggestion of Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), Binet investigated the mental processes
of mathematical prodigies and human calculators, focusing on exceptional mental calculators, such as
Pericles Diamandi (born in 1868) and Jacques Inaudi (1867-1950), an Italian calculating prodigy who
spent his childhood as a shepherd. Inaudicould calculate at age 6, but could not read or write until age
20. He was able to mentally calculate numbers as high as 21 figures, add any 5 numbers with 6 figures,
or square any 4-figure number. Binet interpreted Inaudi’s ability as an exceptional memory for
numbers. Binet also attempted to explain the abilities of other exceptional calculators like Gauss,
Ampere, Mondeuz, and Mangiamele. Binet then extended his observation on the exceptionality of the
talented through the study of individuals presenting extraordinary memory in other areas, such as the
performance of chess players while playing blindfolded several chess games.

For Binet, mathematical prodigies formed a natural class, and their ability was independent of
hereditary or environment. Usually, the familiarity with figures was at the expense of general
intelligence. Furthermore, their aptitude was developed by exercise and was decreased by non-
usage. Human calculation was largely a matter of auditory and visual mnemonics.

In 1893, Binet made a study of the connection between mathematics and chess. After conducting
interviews with a large number of leading chess players, he found that over 90% of them were good
mental calculators and had good memories. On the other hand, he found that some mathematicians
played chess, but few were strong players. Binetnoted that the abilities of human calculators started
around age 4, whereas the ability to play strong chess started around age 11.

One of Binet’s conclusions concerning human calculators and chess masters was the importance of
training and experience. Despite his suggestion that an excellent chess player is innate (he wrote that
“One becomes a good player but one is born an excellent player”), he observed that training the
memory daily encouraged the maintenance and/or the development of recall performance.

In 1894, Binet had done a series of experiments to see how well chess players played when
blindfolded. He was interested in the cognitive faculties of chess masters and thought that master chess
depended upon the phenomenological qualities of visual memory (photographic memory). He found
that only chess masters were able to play chess successfully without seeing the board and intermediate
players found it impossible to play a game of blindfold chess. Binet argued that an amateur chess player
could never play blindfold chess, no matter how good his memory was. Binet concluded that the
memory proposed by the master varied in different mnemonic forms (techniques used to retain
information into a form the brain can understand better).

Binet theorized that chess masters had an “inner mirror (miroir interieur),” which would reflect back to
them, move by move, each successive configuration of the chess board. This notion was supported by
all the memory literature and science that depicted memory as being visually based. The ancient Greeks
developed the art of mnemonics,memory tricks that relied on visualization to remember large amounts
of detail.Typically, a mnemonist would “deposit” difficult-to-remember information into imagined
compartments, seats, or rooms. Binet wanted to know if blindfold chess players were doing the same
thing.

He found that only some of the master chess players could play from memory and a few could play
multiple games simultaneously without looking at the boards. To remember the positions of the pieces
on the boards, some players envisioned exact replicas of specific chess sets, while others envisioned an
abstract schema of the game. Binetconcluded that extraordinary feats of memory such as blind chess
playing could take a variety of mnemonic forms. He recounted his experiments in a book
entitled Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs en echec (Psychology of the Great Calculators
and Chess Players), published in Paris in 1894.

At first, Binet considered the fact that many chess masters are able to play simultaneously at least 8
to 10 games blindfolded as an achievement in the realm of visual memory (which he called
geometrical). For example, in 1783, Philidor could play 3 games blindfolded simultaneously. In
1851, Kieseritzky could play 4 games blindfolded. In 1859, Louis Paulsen could play 15 games
blindfolded. In 1876, Zukertort could play 16 games blindfolded.

Binet’s initial interest in blindfold chess was sparked by hearing about these mental feats and observing
them. Such blindfold demonstrations electrified the public. Binet’s major interest during the early
1890s was in exceptional memories, and this had to apply to chess masters who played as many as 8-10
blindfold chess games simultaneously. In 1891, he watched Alphonse Goetz, a Paris master, as he
played 8 blindfold games at the Cade de la Regence, and got interested in how chess masters play
blindfold chess. In 1893, he observed Rosenthal play 8 games of blindfold chess at the
Grand Cercle des Echecs in Paris.

Binet also researched the works of Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893), a French critic and historian who
himself wrote about intelligence. In his book, On Intelligence (1871), Taine had mistakenly concluded
that the blindfold chess player uses a purely visual memory and can maintain a full pictorial image of the
chess board and pieces as the position changes from move to move. Taine wrote, “Evidently the figure
of the whole chess-board, with the different pieces in order, presents itself to the players at each move,
as in an internal mirror, for without this they would be unable to foresee the probable consequences of
their adversary’s and their own moves.” Binet wanted to analyze blindfold chess in a more systematic
and reliable way than Taine had done.

Binet was inspired by Francis Galton (1822-1911), the British anthropologist who was the first to apply
statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence. Binet wanted to
explore the healthy working mind, rather than the pathology of mental illness. The blindfold chess study
was his one of his first works as an assistant director of the Laboratory of Physiological Psychology at the
Sorbonne (he later became its director).

Binet was impressed by the memories of chess players and their ability to play blindfold
chess. Binet wrote, “The blindfold game contains everything: power of concentration, scholarship,
visual memory, not to mention strategic talent, patience, courage, and many other faculties. If one
could see what goes on in a chess player’s head, one would find ever changing panorama of states of
consciousness. By comparison with these our most attentive descriptions are but grossly simplified
schemata.”

In order to collect the opinions of as many experts as possible, Binet first of all conducted a survey which
was taken by chess players of all skill levels, from novice to master. Binet preferred the use of
questionnaires and interviews over that of laboratory instruments and measurement apparatus. He
drew up a list of 14 detailed questions concerning the ways and means by which the blindfolded player
calls the positions during a game back to mind, concerning the character of the representation, the role
of auditory and kinesthetic experiences, etc.

In his questionnaire, first published in the chess magazine la Strategie in 1892, Binet asked the blindfold
players how they call up their memory of the positions, the nature of their representations, and the role
of senses beside the visual. Through the assistance of chess organizations in France, England, Germany,
and Spain, answers were received from many prominent chess players. Parisian masters such as Samuel
Rosenthal (1837-1902), Alphonse Goetz (1865-1934), Jules Arnous de Riviere (1830-
1905), Dawid Janowski (1868-1927), Stanislaus Sittenfeld (1865-1902), and Jean Taubenhaus (1850-
1919) made themselves available for direct study in the psychological laboratory at the Sorbonne.

Binet witnessed several actual displays involving 8-10 simultaneous blindfold games. He once observed
that Goetz, after a performance, was able to recall all 336 moves that he made over 10 blindfold games
played simultaneously. Binet had noticed a hesitation of several seconds after being told
the opponents’s move, and decided this could only be attributed to a time-consuming reconstructive
memory process during which the board positions become clear.

In Binet’s laboratory at the Sorbonne, he questioned intensively chess players what they “saw” when
they played chess blindfolded. To his surprise, his theory on the “inner mirror” was wrong. Chess
memories did not resemble a collection of photographic snapshots. They were much more abstract that
than, more geometric, and more meaningful. The intricate chess positions were not stored in a chess
master’s brain as distinct photolike snapshots, but as a more abstract set of integrated
patterns. Binet concluded, “It is the multitude of suggestions and ideas emanating from a game which
makes it interesting and established it in memory.”

Some of the blindfold players that answered Binet’s questionnaire

included J.H.Blackburne, Siegbert Tarrasch, Emil Schallopp, Carrertas, Cunnock, Moore, Elwel, and David
Forsyth (1854-1909), a Scotsman who immigrated to New Zealand.

In the course of his investigations it became increasingly clear to Binet that his original plan had been
too narrow. Binet came to the conclusion that the ability to play blindfold chess rested on three
fundamental conditions: knowledge and experience in the field of chess (from practice, winning and
losing), imagination (the ability to visualize the position), and memory (erudition, imagination, and
memoire). Binet’s erroneous hypothesis was that concrete visual memory was the basic factor in chess
mastership. This, despite the fact that chess master Goetz told Binet that playing blindfold chess had
nothing to do with visual memory.

It is only because the position is meaningful and not random to the master that he is able to keep the
position in his mind. Each position has a character of its own. The same holds for the course of an
entire game. To a chess master, a game is not a sequence of disconnected moves, but a series of
interrelated, characteristic maneuvers and themes. And a master acquires that skill through chess
knowledge and experience.

For Binet, memory included visual memory, touch memory, and verbal memory. He found that verbal
memory was important for blindfold chess. Verbal memory (the moves are said out loud) allowed one
to reason about the game, and to anticipate moves, to reconstruct imagined positions by reminding
oneself of the moves played. Memory also helped to indentify the color of the squares by using
mnemonics.
Binet thought that playing blindfold chess would require strong powers of concrete memory and of
visualization. However, he found this was not the case. It was not that the expert blindfold player could
visualize a chessboard better than the amateur. It was the opposite that was true. The good blindfold
player was not dependent on the visual aspect of the game. It was the amateur who tried to picture the
whole board. The strong blindfold player was using a more efficient way of storing the position in his
mind.

Binet pointed out that many blindfold players were often vague about their imagery. They typically did
not have any real “picture” of the current position, but only an abstract type of representation. Some
players had to often reconstruct, step-by-step, the position.

Binet concluded that great blindfold players employ primarily an abstract visual memory rather than a
concrete one. But sometimes uncertainty about the exact current position compels the master to
mentally replay previous moves, which Binet considered a form of verbal memory.

Binet identified the crucial component of a chess master’s recollection of a move sequence or a
particular position: the association of a precise meaning with these moves or that position. He
compared chess playing with literacy, and remarked that a novice player’s difficulty in reproducing
details of a game is like trying to remember a line of print composed on incomprehensible symbols. If
the meaning of the print Is understood, a reader can reconstruct all the letters of a sentence after a
single glance. To an experienced chess player, a game of chess is as meaningful as a literary work, and
that replaying a famous game is like reciting a poem.

The reports sent back to Binet differ about the way in which the blindfolded chess player pictures the
chess board and actual situation. Binet concluded from his material that the blind player does not have
a complete picture of the position before him, but rather a rough Gestalt which he searches, step by
step. The master continuously reconstructs the details of the position.

On the basis that almost all of the correspondents laid emphasis on the lack of visual details of color and
form, both of the pieces and the board, Binet came to the conclusion that one must speak here of an
abstract visual memory that the master contrasted with the better known concrete visual
memory. Binet distinguished two forms of memory activity in blindfold play: the retention of positions
and the recollection of the course of a game.

Binet also learned that the great chess players often have no exact visualization of chess
positions. When recalling past games, masters often omitted details, especially isolated moves that did
not fit the idea flow. This was curious to Binet, since one tends to remember, not forget, misfits. He
realized that they were reconstructing the details of past games from remembered ideas and plans, and
recollecting their general conduct.

Binet never actually arrived at the point where he recognized the process of reproduction as a
reconstruction ‘by parts’ of the chess position starting out from a dynamic total schema. Nor did he
recognize the importance of the distinction between knowing ‘which position it is’ and imagining a
position, even though it was expressed rather clearly by several correspondences such
as Siegbert Tarrasch.

Binet’s lack of chess knowledge showed in one of his statements about chess masters. “It is said that
the great masters never risk a move without extensive deliberation, examining as many as four or five
hundred possible combinations.” This remark prejudiced many people against his findings. However,
most of his other general conclusions would be accepted as basically correct today.
Binet wanted to rule out any fraud or cheating in blindfold play. He gathered a list of many possible
ways to cheat in blindfold chess. Some players had small chessboards drawn on their cuffs. Others had
been known to play against friends that planned their “blindfold” games in advance. Some blindfold
players had a friend stationed nearby whom, as the player announced his moves, discreetly stopped him
from making an error. Sometimes the referee helped the blindfold player by changing the tone of his
voice, or otherwise indicating that the blindfold player should rethink the move he had just called out if
it was a blunder. Binet advised that a careful observer should exercise suspicion when viewing any
blindfold exhibition.

The strongest player that responded to Binet’s questionnaire was Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch. In explaining his
thought process, Tarrasch wrote, “Some part of every chess game is played blindfold. For example, any
combination of five or more moves is carried out in one’s head – the only difference being that one is
sitting in front of the chess board. The sight of the chessman frequently upsets one’s
calculations.” When Binet asked if a chess master could mentally see the entire chess board at the same
time, Tarrasch responded, “Of course. But it is difficult.”

Besides blindfold chess, Binet’s book contains other interesting reflections about chess. Binet insisted
on the analogy between chess and mathematics. He noted that many well-known historical figures
played chess, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill. Binet noted that women tended
to to excel at chess because the game required physical vigor and a taste for combat. Binet observed
that chess players tended to be rather vain. Binet also noted that chess used to be dominated by Latin
players, but were now bypassed by Jews. He wrote that almost all the strong Jewish players were
professional, “which shows clearly the seriousness of the race.”

In 1895, Binet founded the experimental journal, L’Annee psychologique, in which he published articles
on memory, problem solving, emotion, and attention.

By 1905, after his study with chess players, Binet opened a laboratory for the study of children and
pedagogy (he made a study of his own daughters).

In 1905, Binet was appointed to a ministerial commission to study retarded school

children. Binet teamed up with psychologist Dr. Theodore Simon and created the “New methods for
Diagnosing Idiocy, Imbecility and Moron,” which became known as the Binet – Simon Scale, or, an
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test. Binet used the concept of mental age to create a test that accurately
predicted academic achievement. While not widely accepted in France, a New Jersey school teacher
brought the test to the United States for use with learning disabled children. Once in the States,
Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman (1877-1956) tweaked and refined Binet’s work to establish the
Stanford-BinetIntelligence Scale.

Binet gave birth to a century of chess investigation that would help understand the human mind. In
1946, Dutch master and psychologist Adriaan de Groot (1914-2006) published his Thought and Choice in
Chess (his PhD dissertation). In his work, following up on Binet’s work, investigated the skills, speed,
style, and articulation of skill levels of the chess player. De Groot observed that great chess players did
not actually calculate significantly more or faster than lesser players, nor have better
memories. Instead, they recognized more chess patters more quickly, so as to make more relevant
calculations and, therefore, better decisions.

References:
Binet, Mnemonic Virtuosity: A Study of Chess Players, 1893
Binet, Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs en echec, 1894
https://archive.org/details/psychologiedesg00binegoog
Binet, The Mind and the Brain, 1907
De Groot, Thought and Choice in Chess, 1946
Fancher, “Alfred Binet, General Psychologist,” Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, 1998
Hearst and Knott, Blindfold Chess: History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, 2009
Pollack, The Experimental Psychology of Alfred Binet: Selected Papers, 1969
Taine, On Intelligence, 1871