A study of an international chess tournament has revealed that wearing a face mask significantly reduced the average quality of player decisions, impacting the cognitive performance of competitive chess players.
Australian chess Grandmaster and University of Queensland Prof. David Smerdon analysed almost three million chess moves played by 8,531 people in 18 countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The decrease in performance was due to the annoyance caused by the masks rather than a physiological mechanism,” Smerdon said.
“The data showed masks were more likely to decrease performance in situations where there was a demanding mental task with a high working memory load.”…