AI Insight
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed data from professional chess games to examine the relationship between decision time and decision quality. Contrary to common intuition, researchers found that faster decisions are, on average, associated with higher-quality moves. The team suggests that decision time reflects the subjectively perceived difficulty of a problem, meaning that players think longer precisely when they face more challenging positions, yet this extended deliberation does not consistently yield better outcomes.
Why it matters
These findings challenge widely held assumptions about deliberation and decision quality in complex strategic contexts, with potential implications for understanding human decision-making in fields such as economics, management, and cognitive psychology.
In chess, faster decisions are on average of higher quality. This is the conclusion of a study that has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team of researchers, which, in addition to Professor Uwe Sunde from LMU, includes scientists from Erasmus University Rotterdam and UniDistance Suisse, analyzed data from professional games of chess. Their aim was to investigate how the time taken to make a complex strategic decision is related to the quality of this decision. Sunde and his colleagues believe the outcome of their research indicates that the decision time reflects the subjectively perceived difficulty of the problem, which can vary depending on the situation.
Source: Professional chess analysis reveals faster decisions correlate with higher quality moves