HHL - Pattern Recognition

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A page on the learning technique of pattern recognition.

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Since I am a Chess Master, I will confine myself to the area in which I have a
great deal of experience, and that is teaching chess. But just about anyone
should be able to grasp the truth of what I am about to relate.

A story of pattern recognition - Firstly, pattern recognition is one of the most basic ways we all learn. As an infant, we quickly learn what our mother's face looks like. Repeated studies have shown that an infant - only a few days old - will recognize his own mother and cry if given to a total stranger.

(Not just physical features that can be identified visually, either. Repeated studies have shown that a tiny baby even learn to recognize what his mother FEELS or SMELLS like. A young cousin of mine had a baby. She cut her very long hair when the baby was only a few months old. The baby had spasms and great difficulty nursing after the haircut. I watched that baby very closely when I first saw him. The first thing he did, after he was picked up, was to enmesh himself in his mothers long hair. After the haircut, he could - of course - no longer do this. (I was only about 7 at the time.) But I asked the mother if she saved any of her hair. She had. I told here to tie up a short piece of the hair, very tightly - on one end - with a ribbon and let the baby hold it while it was nursing. AS SOON AS SHE DID THIS, THE SPASMS STOPPED AND THE BABY BEGAN TO FEED NORMALLY AGAIN!! I think this proves that even a baby responds very strongly to tactile stimulation. Of course we have all heard the {TRUE} story of the infants who were not allowed to touch their mothers. The entire study had to be aborted because the babies began to die!)

I have had my own experiences in this field. (Additionally, I have worked as a computer programmer, and know the difficulty of the task of getting a computer to recognize a relatively simple object or pattern.) When I first started to date my wife, her son (Daniel) was barely three years old. He was a little backwards in his speech, primarily - I felt - because everyone talked to him in, "baby talk." I put an immediate stop to this and demanded that everyone talk to him in whole sentences. I also got to spend a lot of time with him, I often watched him while my wife (to be) went to work. I also began using him as a living laboratory for my learning and teaching techniques. (I also do NOT mean this in a mean way, I personally love the boy very much.) One of the things I began to do was to teach him various patterns. It was amazing to see how quickly he learned and responded to these lessons - it was if he had been hungry for some real mental stimulation. (I also tried to always make it into the format of a game or a "fun thing to do.") One of the things we both had a lot of fun with was the ... "CAR-TRUCK-BOAT" game. I found or purchased a few toys, a few cars, a couple of little toy trucks, and a little boat. Then I would play with him. I made sure he knew what a car, a truck and the boat was. Then I tried to fool him. At first I could, because he was a little gullible, but then he became very sure of his patterns. As I already said, it is very difficult - or at least was very much so at the time - to teach a computer to recognize what a truck is. No matter what shape it is; what color it is; or whether or not it has four wheels ... or eighteen - this can be a very difficult task, at least for the technology of that era. But Daniel, of course, managed it without any problems.

I will never forget the day, we were riding around in my yellow Pacer. The windows were down, and the wind was blowing Daniel's long, blond curls everywhere. I pointed to a tanker truck, and said - in my most forceful voice - "That's a car!" Daniel giggled, then laughed out loud. He then responded, in a pretty loud voice himself, "No ... TWUCK!!" (He had a pretty bad lisp when he was younger.)

We can obviously see that children both use - and greatly enjoy - basic pattern recognition in their first attempts at learning. It is a fundamental technique that remains constant throughout our lives.

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I am going to expand on this. Later I am going to add a whole section on how pattern recognition can be used in general teaching, and also how this method can specifically be used in teaching the game of chess. I have over 25 years of experience in this area, and feel I can, at least help chess, by bringing a few of these ideas to the fore.

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INSURE YOUR (chess) STUDENTS KNOW THE FOLLOWING PATTERNS:

THE BASIC FORMATIONS, (ONLY the first 3-5 moves!!!); of the different openings!
THE BASIC MATING PATTERNS.
THE BASIC ATTACKING MOTIFS.
THE BASIC PATTERNS IN THE END-GAME.
(Rook on the seventh rank, the importance of a passed pawn, etc.)