Research on the benefits of playing go?

[mike L]

I am a graduate student in occupational therapy.
I am researching the benefits people (especially children) get from playing go.

If anyone knows of any research that has been done on this topic I would appreciate information on that.

Also I am interested in what people's opinions are on this subject.

[Newzfoxjr]

My opinion is, well. Eh, it's hard to express. But I think it makes you smarter, basically. When you play Go you want to get better, smarter at the game. I think once you start wanting that, in real life you start to try to find better, smarter ways to do things. It makes you hungry for knowledge and intellect. You try to figure things out, work on them, etc.


Or at least that's how it is with me. And I like it, that's why I play Go.

[TMark]

I have played Go for over 40 years now and the best way that I can express it is that Go is all about efficiency of moves. When you find that you are applying the idea of that efficiency to what you do at work or elsewhere, it just helps you to do better.

Best wishes.

[Iceman]

If anyone knows of any research that has been done on this topic I would appreciate information on that.

It's not academic research, but there's a book about personal experience/research and go called Go as Communication. A review is here: http://www.gobooks.info/ssyy101.html

Your work might qualify you to receive a free copy from the American Go Foundation on this page: http://www.usgo.org/agf/schools.html

Here's what they have to say about it:
Free Book for Organizers

Go As Communication by Yasuda Yasutoshi Pro 9-Dan (Slate & Shell Press 2001) presents a whole new way of looking at the game of go. When Yasuda Sensei became concerned about social problems among young people, he began visiting Japanese schools, teaching children a simplified version of go, which he called "First Capture Go." Seeing immediate positive effects, he expanded his efforts to homes for the elderly and then to institutions for the mentally and physically handicapped. This book is the record of a surprising discovery, namely, that "First Capture Go" can have enormous educational and therapeutic value.

See the actual page for details on how to acquire the book from them.

[mgelo]

I have a student playing Go but he seems close to failing.
Go figure...

[dogbert]

I am a graduate student in occupational therapy.
I am researching the benefits people (especially children) get from playing go.

If anyone knows of any research that has been done on this topic I would appreciate information on that.


I know that I have heard of reports indicating that chess tends to utilize only one side of the brain; whereas, go has been observed to utilize both sides of the brain. Probably such observations were made with CRT or MRI or similar techniques. So a topic search along those lines should allow you to pull a few papers--and just follow the references from those papers.

Interesting related topics are (in no particular order):
(1) I think there are reports on how asian writing (i.e., calligraphy) also utilize the more artistic side of the brain.
(2) There are studies on how Mandarin speaking children are more likely to develop perfect pitch than English speaking children. (children of course).
(3) I think I have heard of an account where some Japanese person suffered head trauma (I think some brain damage was involved) in an accident and was only able to recall the use the non-Kanji, phonetic characters utilized in the Japanese language (i.e., hiragana, katakana).
(4) You should determine if there are studies on brain utilization of players of the asian chess variants--e.g., weiqi (Chinese chess), janggi (Korean chess), and shogi (Japanese chess); and determine whether or not the brain utilization patterns are similar to those of Western chess players.
(5) Does age at which one is introduced to go playing influence the utilization pattern of the brain when the game is continued to be played later in life.
(6) Does the brain utilization pattern of a person learning to play go evolve over time as the person transitions from beginner (roughly double-digit kyu) to intermediate player (single digit kyu) to strong (amateur dan level) (and to professional). Is this brain utilization evolution pattern (if it exists) differ among different age groups; whether or not the person played chess extensively before; etc.

I raise the above 4 topics as their respective influences should be investigated to determine whether or not your study on go influenced behavior will need to take account of such things as language and/or environment. For instance, it is conceivable that prior studies on go players and chess players may have just examined asian go players and western chess players. As such, such a study may not have determined whether or not language may have an effect--the asian go player, whose brain is accustomed to using both hemispheres on account of learning his/her respective spoken/written language, may have a predisposition to utilizing both brain hemispheres; the western go player, having had a brain developed with languages utilizing predominantly one hemisphere, may just tend to utilize one side out of habit (hence finding comparative studies on eastern chess variants).

Well,...let us know if you get a paper out of any of the above. :-)

[eligo]

Interesting, the part with the differences in brain side utilization between Go and Chess. Is there such a big "creative" part in Go?

...e.g., weiqi (Chinese chess)

Weiqi is Go, Chinese chess is Xiangqi

[vap]

Pattern recognition plays a large part in Go. I can easily recreate a game I have just played from move one by remembering the reasoning behind each of my moves but I need to place them in the same order they were played otherwise I become lost.

I also read somewhere that a study was done in which Go players were shown some stones on a board for a few seconds then asked to recreate that pattern on a board. They did much better when the stones were placed in a way that made "Go sense" than when the stones were placed randomly.

[wessanenoctupus]

Interesting, the part with the differences in brain side utilization between Go and Chess. Is there such a big "creative" part in Go?


A lot of moves are based on intuition, when you play speed go, you are usign your creativity. Opening sequences have a lot of potential to use your creativity.

[sol.ch]

A lot of moves are based on intuition, when you play speed go, you are usign your creativity. Opening sequences have a lot of potential to use your creativity.

this does not explain the creativity aspect of Go at all. One can just as easily say:

A lot of moves are based on intuition, when you play speed chess, you are using your creativity. Opening sequences have a lot of potential to use your creativity.

[sumiyaka]

I also read somewhere that a study was done in which Go players were shown some stones on a board for a few seconds then asked to recreate that pattern on a board. They did much better when the stones were placed in a way that made "Go sense" than when the stones were placed randomly.

This is also true of Chess.

[wessanenoctupus]

In chess opening sequences are pretty limited from my experience.

[wessanenoctupus]

Studys using brain monitering stuff show that during opening of the game of Go you use your right brain, and towards the end of the game you use almost exclusivly your left brain. In chess you are mostly using your left brain.

(left brain-calculation)
(right brain-creativity, abstract thinking)

i dont remember off the top of my head who did the study, but i believe it was performed at tokyo university.

Cho Chikun talks breifly about it in the Magic Of Go.

[zuuzuu]

In chess opening sequences are pretty limited from my experience.
Wrong

[wessanenoctupus]

my experience is pretty limited too %__%

[LPDavid]

I am researching the benefits people (especially children) get from playing go.

Heu.... The time spent playing Go is not invested in pursuing more dangerous activities ?


Honestly I think it's just a hobby, I don't think there is benefit (as in more benefit than any other mental activity).

In the west you might have a little more intellectual people pull toward Go, but I think that these people like Go becasue they like mental activities.... it's not Go that is somehow making them smart.

[Iceman]

*Always consider bias when doing such research. It goes without saying that most of those writing about the benefits of go are already fans of the game. Once again, consider bias.

Here's an argument for several benefits of go:

http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/Skip_Ascheim_1982_Educational.pdf

Another from Richard Bozulich (one desires footnotes to the claims that "Japanese psychologists have done extensive testing..." and other such statements about stroke victims' fuseki being effected and so on).
http://shinbo.free.fr/TheMagicOfGo/index.php?tmog=13

There's a little bit in this article starting on page 5 where Earnest Brown discusses Go in schools.
http://www.sfweekly.com/2001-02-28/news/go-crazy/

Here's a sort of summary of Go as Communication which I mentioned above:
http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/demaiffe-yasuda.pdf

Another that seems to attempt a balance between chess and go "we give individuals a choice":
http://www.takoma.com/archives/copy/2003/10/gochess.html

And one of my favorites- the dark (and harmful) effects of go- presented by the LA Weekly:
http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/the-go-club/6770/?page=5

Somewhere I have more links to go-education articles. If I find them, will post.

[malweth]

Try Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) - this is an excellent (relatively new) research tool!! I usually get free PDFs of most things I find too.

A quick search for '"the game of go" brain' finds some articles - but you need to wade through stuff on AI. There's not a lot on this subject.

Some abstracts:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1577341

(chess) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYV-4700TMW-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1d915cc12b8603b49a597d657c6a43b1

(old) http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/21741

(economics based) http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1571-9979.1998.tb00154.x

(book, theoretical) http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=1544

[daal]

You might try looking at this website:

http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/

The author cites various studies in his articles.

[Peter Shotwell]

Hello,
I recently posted an appendix to my go and cognitive psychology article in the Bob High Library at www.usgo.org/bobhighlibrary. It and the main article address many of the points brought up in this discussion--including the MRI study on go and the historical relationship between human learning and the discovery of the Monte Carlo method of computing go.
Another explanation for the curious (to us) Chinese methods of negotiating is mentioned at the bottom of footnote 4 of my Origins of Go article.
Peter Shotwell

[Bantari]

I am a graduate student in occupational therapy.
I am researching the benefits people (especially children) get from playing go.

If anyone knows of any research that has been done on this topic I would appreciate information on that.

Also I am interested in what people's opinions are on this subject.

While instinctively I feel that the benefits are great, I am not really sure how to formulate an answer.
I also feel that if your education is conducted properly (starting with the grade school) - there might be very little you can learn through Go that you cannot learn in other ways...

As for benefits... if you think of the human being as one huge "muscle", what areas of this "muscle" are excercised by playing Go? The ability to concentrate, very very important... Patience - also very important... shape manipulation, spacial thinking in 2D, immagination (to read out sequences not yet played), and so on... I think that in terms of "tharepy", the concentration and patience might be the most important.

There are probably other benefits...

There are also social benefits.
Go is a game you have to play with a partner, so you learn about respect... about behaving among other players, in your club (well - the internet messes this one up slightly)...

In terms of development - you practice your learning technique, and sometimes you practice teaching...

This is all very vague, just what I can think of in the moment.

However - I think a good advice might be to look at other games. There is not much Go literarure available for us in the West, but there might be books/writings about the benefits of playing chess, for example... or bridge... or whatever. You might want to read those and then see how they apply to Go. For example - I would just Go to Borders or Barns&Noble and grab some chess books at random (provided you did not find one specifically about benefits of playing chess) and look at the introductions of these books... some of them are devoted to the very subject - why it is a good thing to play chess. You might find a lot of good info there!

To help you more, you might want to look at Milt's page and the stuff he wrote. I cannot say I agree with some of that, but hey - who am I to argue!

Pleasurable way to a superior mind (http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Mind.html)
Why every child should learn Go (http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/ChildGo.html)
... and so on.

Hope this helps.

[deslni01]

I honestly haven't read through any of these posts in a while and decided to post now. Regardless of what anyone says, Go does have benefits for the mind. Not only does it continually stimulate it through playing and studying (and as we all know, playing in our minds while we drive or try to fall asleep!), but it also benefits logic and reasoning. The brain is just like any muscle - if you don't use it, you will lose it (to a degree).

I have heard of studies that take brain scans during game play, which shows brain stimulation. And if you've ever taken a psych course, stimulating the brain not only keeps it "strong," but it makes the cells stronger and creates new ones.

As a student about to graduate, I know how these research projects go. I just finished my senior paper for history ("The Norse Way of Life on Greenland" :D) and I hope if you do continue to pursue this topic that you share it with us here on GD.