Adrianus Dingeman (Adriaan) de Groot ( Santpoort, 26 October 1914 – Schiermonnikoog, 14 August 2006) was a Dutch

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

master and

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

, who conducted some of the most famous chess experiments of all time in the 1940s-60. In 1946 he wrote his thesis ''Het denken van den schaker'', which in 1965 was translated into English and published as ''Thought and choice in chess''. De Groot played for the Netherlands in the

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in FIDE Onli ...

s of

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Feb ...

and

1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...

. In 1973 he became member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

Study of chess players

The studies involve participants of all chess backgrounds, from amateurs to masters. They investigate the cognitive requirements and the thought processes involved in moving a chess piece. The participants were usually required to solve a given chess problem correctly under the supervision of an experimenter and represent their thought-processes vocally so that they could be recorded. De Groot found that much of what is important in choosing a move occurs during the first few seconds of exposure to a new position. Four stages in the task of choosing the next move were noted. The first stage was the 'orientation phase', in which the subject assessed the situation and determined a very general idea of what to do next. The second stage, the 'exploration phase' was manifested by looking at some branches of the game tree. The third stage, or 'investigation phase' resulted in the subject choosing a probable best move. Finally, in the fourth stage, the 'proof phase', saw the subject confirming with him/herself that the results of the investigation were valid. De Groot concurred with Alfred Binet that visual memory and visual perception are important attributors and that problem-solving ability is of paramount importance. Memory is particularly important, according to de Groot (1965), in that there are no ‘new’ moves in chess, so those from personal experience (or from the experience of others) can be committed to memory.

Publications

*''Thought and choice in chess '' (1965). *'' Saint Nicholas, A psychoanalytic study of his history and myth '' (1965). *'' Methodology. Foundations of inference and research in the behavioral sciences '' (1969). *'' Perception and memory in chess: Heuristics of the professional eye '' (1996; with Fernand Gobet and Riekent Jongman).

References

External links

*
Remembering Adriaan de Groot
{{DEFAULTSORT:Groot, Adriaan De 1914 births 2006 deaths Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam People from Velsen Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows 20th-century Dutch chess players 20th-century Dutch sportsmen 20th-century Dutch psychologists