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New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

worldchess.com

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Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#121

Post by dood »

matt4077 wrote: post #110
jgys wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. Being hyper-focused on one thing is actually symptomatic of ADHD, and amphetamines like Adderall and Ritalin may exacerbate or mitigate this tendency (as I understand it mainly from personal experience, but also some literature), depending on the individual and external factors.

No, I'm pretty sure being "hyper-focused" is the opposite of ADHD, considering that "focus" and "attention" are synonyms and "deficit" and "hyper" are opposites, And the effect of amphetamines is improved focus (as well as slight euphoria and wakefulness) BUT one possible problem is that people lose control of what they focus on and tend to get lost in the details. I. e. you start out writing a letter and end up read…

> No, I'm pretty sure being "hyper-focused" is the opposite of ADHD

This is a common misconception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus

"It is typical for individuals with ADHD to say they 1), cannot focus on boring things and 2), can only focus on stimulating things, and that focus is often extreme. Thus it is both a concentration deficit and over-concentration, or generically: "hyperfocus." More concisely, some types of ADHD are a difficulty in directing one's attention, not a lack of attention"

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#122

Post by misja111 »

RangerScience wrote: post #21
SeanLuke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where they discarded human losses on time. This stinks of p-value hunting. I can only imagine the study went like this. They did all these tests and then found that there were no statistically significant improvements after using these drugs. So they said to themselves, how can we tweak the parameters so as to get something publishable? Sure, let's eliminate an entire class of games where our control group does bet…

> else we'd all spend five hours on each move. Chess is about bounded rationality Without any other tools (as in, pencil and paper to note conclusions), do you really think you could make a more effective move given five hours? I mean - if the conclusion of the study is actually that use of drugs gave players a larger personal time bounds within which to think up a move, that's still significant. I don't know about y…

Yes I could definitely make a more effective move in five hours than in four hours.

But the study we are talking about didn't give their players anything near such time, only rapid chess was played, where each player gets 15 minutes for the entire game. In rapid chess, time management is a crucial part of the game so it is very strange that they decided to eliminate games where a player ran out of time.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#123

Post by dood »

kuerbel wrote: post #119

The only actual performance-enhancing drug I know of is creatine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine_supplements#Cognitive... ) I'm a vegetarian, and since ~8 months I take creatine daily. I wonder why it has this effect on vegetarians and vegans...

Your link answers your question: "Vegetarian supplementation with creatine seems to be especially beneficial as they appear to have lower average body stores, since meat is a primary source of dietary creatine."

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#124

Post by wapz »

wapz wrote: post #96
artursapek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am dependent on Google to do my job, but I am not addicted to it.

How are you dependent on Google for your job? Do you work for google?

Thank you for the downvotes, I appreciate it. Now would someone mind explaining how you can be dependent on Google for your job?

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#125

Post by a_imho »

SeanLuke wrote: post #17
cven714 wrote: post #3

The study was done with rapid games, against computers, where they discarded human losses on time. Not very confident in those results. But hopefully the researcher gets the chance to try and reproduce and use classical time controls, and human vs. human opponents.

> where they discarded human losses on time. This stinks of p-value hunting. I can only imagine the study went like this. They did all these tests and then found that there were no statistically significant improvements after using these drugs. So they said to themselves, how can we tweak the parameters so as to get something publishable? Sure, let's eliminate an entire class of games where our control group does bet…

But that's not how chess is played, else we'd all spend five hours on each move.

Correspondence chess is a thing though

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#126

Post by eutectic »

fdsfsaa wrote: post #19
fizixer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nicotine through pill, not smoking a cigarette?

Nicotine is best administrated through gum or a transdermal patch. I haven't heard of many people using it in pill form. Nicotine alone is similar to smoking a cigarette, but not identical: cigarettes also contain MAOI inhibitors which have synergistic effects with nicotine.

Lozenges are also available.

It's interesting to note that apparently nicotine is not addictive without the MOAIs from tobacco smoke.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#127

Post by tempestn »

matt4077 wrote: post #111
tempestn wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible the advantage was related to something like creativity or insight?

Other hypothesis: any improvement in mood may positively impact your ability to think for long stretches of time.

Yep. Or increased confidence / decreased nervousness could minimize mistakes. Lots of possibilities.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#128

Post by grzm »

wapz wrote: post #96
artursapek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am dependent on Google to do my job, but I am not addicted to it.

How are you dependent on Google for your job? Do you work for google?

Speculation: Perhaps they use GAE, or another of Google's services as part of their stack. Or they use Google search heavily for looking up references.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#129

Post by andai »

wapz wrote: post #124
wapz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you dependent on Google for your job? Do you work for google?

Thank you for the downvotes, I appreciate it. Now would someone mind explaining how you can be dependent on Google for your job?

Probably not what OP meant, but I usually have to look something up on Google for every few lines of code I write.

It takes me less time to look things up than to learn em properly.

Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess

#130

Post by andai »

scott_s wrote: post #33
tedsanders wrote: post #15

Does this study actually provide strong evidence for performance enhancement? Folks who took the drugs took longer to play their moves. They lost more games on time, but ignoring those games, their play was better and they consequently won more games. But imagine an alternate study where players were given the instructions to take more time on their moves. In this study, they would have lost more games on time, but w…

Strong evidence? No. But the authors do not claim it as strong evidence. From near the end: Dr. Lieb said that there are two caveats to the results. One is that they must be replicated by additional studies before it would be possible to say with some degree of certainty that the drugs enhance performance. The second was that the study contained a flaw: the games were too quick, creating the problem of time-forfeits…

That's interesting, my experience (and my friend's) with Modafinil has been that it helps you stay with a task for longer, in other words leaving things unfinished bothers you more than it usually does.
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