Too bad. My suspects for confounders for that sort of thing would be ‘you played less at the start/end of term’ or ‘you were more distracted at the start/end of term’.
Interesting. Is this typically the case with chess? Humans tend to do better with tasks when they are repeated more frequently, albeit with strongly diminishing returns.
being distracted is one of the effects of stress.
Absolutely, which makes it very difficult to tease apart ‘being distracted as a result of stress caused by X causing a drop’ and ‘being distracted due to X causing a drop’.
Interesting. Is this typically the case with chess? Humans tend to do better with tasks when they are repeated more frequently, albeit with strongly diminishing returns.
I see what you mean, and yes, that is a plausible hypothesis. It’s hard to get a solid number, but glancing over the individual records of my games, it looks like I was playing about as much as usual. Subjectively, it doesn’t feel like lack of practice was responsible.
I think the right way to interpret my use of “stress” in this context is “the bundle of psychological pressures associated with exam season,” rather than a psychological construct that we can neatly distinguish from, say, distractability or sleep loss. It’s kind of like saying “being on an ocean voyage with no access to fresh fruits and vegetables caused me to get scurvy.”
How much did you play during the start / end of term compared to normal?
I don’t know exactly, Lichess doesn’t have a convenient way to plot that day by day. But probably roughly equal amounts. It’s my main distraction.
Too bad. My suspects for confounders for that sort of thing would be ‘you played less at the start/end of term’ or ‘you were more distracted at the start/end of term’.
Playing less wouldn’t decrease my score, and being distracted is one of the effects of stress.
Interesting. Is this typically the case with chess? Humans tend to do better with tasks when they are repeated more frequently, albeit with strongly diminishing returns.
Absolutely, which makes it very difficult to tease apart ‘being distracted as a result of stress caused by X causing a drop’ and ‘being distracted due to X causing a drop’.
I see what you mean, and yes, that is a plausible hypothesis. It’s hard to get a solid number, but glancing over the individual records of my games, it looks like I was playing about as much as usual. Subjectively, it doesn’t feel like lack of practice was responsible.
I think the right way to interpret my use of “stress” in this context is “the bundle of psychological pressures associated with exam season,” rather than a psychological construct that we can neatly distinguish from, say, distractability or sleep loss. It’s kind of like saying “being on an ocean voyage with no access to fresh fruits and vegetables caused me to get scurvy.”