The psychology of chess has become a field all its own. Alfred Binet, a French psychologist and inventor of the late 19th and early 20th century was able to prove (through the blindfolding of players) that experience, imagination and memories both concrete and abstract were needed at the grand master level of chess. This contradicted the belief that visuospatial (relating to or denoting the visual perception of the spatial relationships of objects) understanding was the integral component to good chess players.

Later on, another psychologist and master chess player, Adriaan de Groot, wrote a doctoral thesis in chess, translated and published in English as “Thought and choice in chess.” In it he described how his studies found that much of what is important in move selection often occurs during the 1st few seconds a player is exposed to a new situation. He outlined that there were 4 stages. He called the 1st the ‘orientation phase.’ Here, subjects assessed the situation and formulated a basic means of going forward. The next stage was termed the ‘exploration phase’ and manifested itself as players looking through past and future moves. de Groot called the 3rd stage the ‘investigation phase.’ This stage resulted in players picking what they believed was the best possible move given the situation. The 4th stage was termed the ‘proof phase.’ This phase is similar to a student rechecking his or her answers on a test. de Groot was also able to show that good chess players could memorize and recall positions shown to them for only a few seconds almost perfectly. What separated the great from those who were just good was the ability to have near total positional recall of the positions of the pieces step by step as they occurred in an actual game.

After the History of Chess 1850 to 1945, research has focused on chess as a form of mental training and its affects on the brain. Fields of study have included gender differences, how personality and/or intelligence affects skill in chess, the roles of knowledge versus foresight, computational models involving chess expertise and brain imaging studies done on both novices and masters. A popular field of study today has involved how practice and/or talent plays a role in chess ability.