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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
Volume 15 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1407583
The effect of chess on cognition: a graph theory study on cognitive data
Provisionally accepted- 1 Departamento de Psicología Clínica, Psicobiología y Metodología, Facultad de Psicología y Logopedia, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Campus de Guajara. 38071 San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife), Spain
- 2 Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Psicología y Logopedia, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Campus de Guajara. 38071 San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife), Spain
- 3 Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Fernando Pessoa Canarias, Las Palmas, Spain
- 4 Division of Clinical Geriatrics, Center for Alzheimer Research, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
We aimed to advance our understanding of the effect of chess on cognition by expanding previous univariate studies with the use of graph theory on cognitive data. Specifically, we investigated the cognitive connectome of adult chess players.We included 19 chess players and 19 controls with ages between 39 and 69 years. Univariate analysis and graph theory included 27 cognitive measures representing multiple cognitive domains and subdomains. Graph analysis included global and nodal measures of integration, segregation, and centrality. We also performed an analysis of community structures to gain an additional understanding of the cognitive architecture of chess players.The analysis of global graph measures showed that chess players had a higher local efficiency than controls at the cost of a lower global efficiency, which did not permeate segregation aspects of their connectome. The nodal graph measures showed that executive/attention/processing speed and visuoconstructive nodes had a central role in the connectome of chess players. The analysis of communities showed that chess players had a slightly reorganized cognitive architecture into three modules. These graph theory findings were in the context of better cognitive performance in chess players than controls in visuospatial abilities.We conclude that the cognitive architecture of chess players is slightly reorganized into functionally and anatomically coherent modules reflecting a distinction between visual, verbal,
Keywords: Chess, Neuropsychology, graph theory, connectome, modularity, Efficiency
Received: 27 Mar 2024; Accepted: 29 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Gonzalez-Burgos, Lozano-Rodriguez, Molina, Garcia-Cabello, Aciego de Mendoza Lugo, Barroso and Ferreira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Daniel Ferreira, Division of Clinical Geriatrics, Center for Alzheimer Research, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
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