Vasukova, E.E.

The effect of chess skill, age and memorizing’s conditions on the efficiency of recall of sequences of opening chess moves was studied. 39 chess players of different skill (from 2 category to the grandmaster) and age (from 17 to 81 years old), divided into 4 groups (ELO>2000 before and after the age of 40; ELO<2000 before and after the age of 40), memorized the sequences of moves in three conditions (passive perception, physical making of moves, imagination) and recalled them, making the moves. It turned out that: a) in the passive perception condition more young chess players, on the one hand, and more highly skilled, on the other, significantly better recalled the moves; b) almost in all groups of players the success of the memory grows to the extent that, as converging conditions of memorizing and reproduction, with the highest growth rate found among chess players with ELO>2000 after 40 years; c) the current memorizing of chess experts (in comparison with intermediate players) to a greater extent mediated by opening schemes and knowledge. Confirmed and concretized the hypothesis about the activity-based encoding specificity in the episodic memory. But chess skill and age determine the effect of remembering by mediator – conditions of imprinting, so the principles of the encoding specificity and activity-based specificity act in unity.