Personal evidence for the impact of stress on cognition. This is my Lichess ranking on Blitz since January. The two craters are, respectively, the first 4 weeks of the term, and the last 2 weeks. It begins trending back up immediately after I took my last final.
Playing less wouldn’t decrease my score, and being distracted is one of the effects of stress.
1TLW
Interesting. Is this typically the case with chess? Humans tend to do better with tasks when they are repeated more frequently, albeit with strongly diminishing returns.
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Absolutely, which makes it very difficult to tease apart 'being distracted as a result of stress caused by X causing a drop' and 'being distracted due to X causing a drop'.
Interesting. Is this typically the case with chess? Humans tend to do better with tasks when they are repeated more frequently, albeit with strongly diminishing returns.
I see what you mean, and yes, that is a plausible hypothesis. It's hard to get a solid number, but glancing over the individual records of my games, it looks like I was playing about as much as usual. Subjectively, it doesn't feel like lack of practice was responsible.
I think the right way to interpret my use of "stress" in this context is "the bundle of psychological pressures associated w... (read more)
