Abstract
<p>Despite its theoretical importance to performance, it remains an open empirical question whether stronger chess players experience more vivid mental imagery. We recruited an online sample of 44 chess players, spanning a wide range of skill levels, who completed imagery questionnaires and an objective probe task requiring identification of the color of a square on an imagined chessboard. Both subjective imagery vividness and probe accuracy were positively associated with chess skill. Stronger players were also more likely to adopt visualization strategies over non-visual strategies, and were more likely to endorse looking away from the board while solving a chess problem. Critically, vividness of imagery during chess problem-solving predicted skill both directly and indirectly. That is, more vivid imagery predicted stronger performance even when accounting for its effect on strategy preference. Among three self-reported aphantasics, one high-skilled player nonetheless performed comparably to the full sample on the probe task, placing in the top 10% of the sample overall, and uniquely reported imagery vividness only when the board was visible. These findings suggest that the vividness of mental imagery contributes to chess performance, in part by shaping which cognitive strategies players use to approach the game, while also indicating that mental imagery vividness is not a strict requirement for expertise.</p>