The Role of Emotion in Problem Solving: First Results from Observing Chess
This work addresses the role of emotion in cognitive processes for chess players, but it is incremental as it builds on existing research in human problem-solving.
The paper investigates how chess players use emotional associations to guide problem-solving, revealing rapid emotional changes during gameplay and proposing a cognitive model for chunk selection.
In this paper we present results from recent experiments that suggest that chess players associate emotions to game situations and reactively use these associations to guide search for planning and problem solving. We describe the design of an instrument for capturing and interpreting multimodal signals of humans engaged in solving challenging problems. We review results from a pilot experiment with human experts engaged in solving challenging problems in Chess that revealed an unexpected observation of rapid changes in emotion as players attempt to solve challenging problems. We propose a cognitive model that describes the process by which subjects select chess chunks for use in interpretation of the game situation and describe initial results from a second experiment designed to test this model.