Study of Chess Players Reveal Mask-Wearers Make Poorer Decisions

epoch times ^ | 12 December A.D. 2022 | Jessie Zhang

[alexander_busek]

Chess players burn through an amazing amount of calories during tournaments (without moving!) and their brains need oxygen.

But does one's brain really need significantly more oxygen when playing grandmaster-level chess?!

I suspect NOT.

Playing grandmaster-level chess certainly requires intense concentration and the heavy burdening of certain cognitive abilities - one could certainly see evidence of this in a brain scan taken during a match. And I'm sure that the tournament participants are very stressed out, psychologically. This might result in heavier breathing, etc. But that's physiological!

But even when simply sitting and reading a comic book, the brain is still performing lots of high-level tasks. It's still processing lots of information. I sincerely doubt that the O₂ consumption is noticeably lower then.

Regards,

[Pajamajan]

Masking likely causes problems with students in the classroom environment too.

[gitmo]

It’s not clear from the article if (1) people who tend to make poor choices are the ones who wear masks or if (2) wearing a mask causes one to make poor decisions.