Reproducing board game positions: Western Chess and African Bao

Cognitive experimental research on experts has been dominated by research on Chess masters. De Groot’s work on Chess masters ( de Groot 1946/1965 ) started a tradition of Chess research concentrating on perception, memory and problem-solving expertise (e.g. Chase & Simon, 1973 ; de Groot & Gobet, 1996 ; Newell & Simon, 1972 ). In later years, this research was replicated by research on board games other than Chess. Experiments on players of Gomoku, Go ( Eisenstadt & Kareev, 1977 ; Reitman, 1976 ) and Othello ( Billman & Shaman, 1990 ; Wolff, Mitchell, & Frey, 1984 ) largely confirmed the findings on Chess masters. In board games research the effect of “cultural” variables has not been studied or even considered. Despite the presence of Japanese, Russian, Dutch and recently African players or games, the results of the experiments have been compared as if there is one “board game culture”. As long as the results of the experiments do not upset the results of Chess research, one could claim that this cultural background is irrelevant and that cognitive experiments on experts concern a level of thinking which is universal in humans. However, recent research on Bao experts - a board game played in East Africa - contradicted some of the results in Chess ( de Voogt, 1995 ). In this instance, the role of “culture” became an issue in two ways. Is the difference between Bao and Chess players related to the differences in playing context or are the experiments designed for Chess not comparable or not applicable to Bao?