Experts

[creative1986]

Got a spare 10,000 hours laying around you ain't usin'? Well get usin' it and become and expert at something for the first time in your miseable existence. No wonder I ain't a rock star, I only spent 8,000 hours playin the dam things.......

Expert Performance and Deliberate Practice

An updated excerpt from Ericsson (2000)

EXPERTISE refers to the mechanisms underlying the superior achievement of an expert, i.e. "one who has acquired special skill in or knowledge of a particular subjects through professional training and practical experience" (Webster's dictionary, 1976, p. 800). The term expert is used to describe highly experienced professionals such as medical doctors, accountants, teachers and scientists, but has been expanded to include any individual who attained their superior performance by instruction and extended practice: highly skilled performers in the arts, such as music, painting and writing, sports, such as swimming, running and golf and games, such as bridge and chess.

When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts' supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found --the demonstrated superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess experts' memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not generalize to other types of materials (Djakow, Petrowski & Rudik,

1927). Not even IQ could distinguish the best among chessplayers (Doll & Mayr, 1987) nor the most successful and creative among artists and scientists (Taylor, 1975). In a recent review, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996) found that (1) measures of general basic capacities do not predict success in a domain, (2) the superior performance of experts is often very domain specific and transfer outside their narrow area of expertise is surprisingly limited and (3) systematic differences between experts and less proficient individuals nearly always reflect attributes acquired by the experts during their lengthy training.

In a pioneering empirical study of the thought processes mediating the highest levels of performance, de Groot (1946/1978) instructed expert and world-class chessplayers to think aloud while they selected their next move for an unfamiliar chess position. The world-class players did not differ in the speed of their thoughts or the size of their basic memory capacity, and their ability to recognize promising potential moves was based on their extensive experience and knowledge of patterns in chess. In their influential theory of expertise, Chase and Simon (1973; Simon & Chase, 1973) proposed that experts with extended experience acquire a larger number of more complex patterns and use these new patterns to store knowledge about which actions should be taken in similar situations.

According to this influential theory, expert performance is viewed as an extreme case of skill acquisition (Proctor & Dutta, 1995; Richman, Gobet, Staszewski & Simon, 1996; VanLehn, 1996) and as the final result of the gradual improvement of performance during extended experience in a domain. Furthermore, the postulated central role of acquired knowledge has encouraged efforts to extract experts' knowledge so that computer scientists can build expert systems that would allow a computer to act as an expert (Hoffman, 1992).

Among investigators of expertise, it has generally been assumed that the performance of experts improved as a direct function of increases in their knowledge through training and extended experience. However, recent studies show that there are, at least, some domains where "experts" perform no better then less trained individuals (cf. outcomes of therapy by clinical psychologists, Dawes, 1994) and that sometimes experts' decisions are no more accurate than beginners' decisions and simple decision aids (Camerer & Johnson, 1991; Bolger & Wright, 1992). Most individuals who start as active professionals or as beginners in a domain change their behavior and increase their performance for a limited time until they reach an acceptable level. Beyond this point, however, further improvements appear to be unpredictable and the number of years of work and leisure experience in a domain is a poor predictor of attained performance (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Hence, continued improvements (changes) in achievement are not automatic consequences of more experience and in those domains where performance consistently increases aspiring experts seek out particular kinds of experience, that is deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-R=F6mer, 1993)--activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual's performance. For example, the critical difference between expert musicians differing in the level of attained solo performance concerned the amounts of time they had spent in solitary practice during their music development, which totaled around

10,000 hours by age 20 for the best experts, around 5,000 hours for the least accomplished expert musicians and only 2,000 hours for serious amateur pianists. More generally, the accumulated amount of deliberate practice is closely related to the attained level of performance of many types of experts, such as musicians (Ericsson et al., 1993; Sloboda, et al., 1996), chessplayers (Charness, Krampe & Mayr, 1996) and athletes (Starkes et al., 1996).

The recent advances in our understanding of the complex representations, knowledge and skills that mediate the superior performance of experts derive primarily from studies where experts are instructed to think aloud while completing representative tasks in their domains, such as chess, music, physics, sports and medicine (Chi, Glaser & Farr, 1988; Ericsson & Smith, 1991; Starkes & Allard,

1993). For appropriate challenging problems experts don't just automatically extract patterns and retrieve their response directly from memory. Instead they select the relevant information and encode it in special representations in working memory that allow planning, evaluation and reasoning about alternative courses of action (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Hence, the difference between experts and less skilled subjects is not merely a matter of the amount and complexity of the accumulated knowledge; it also reflects qualitative differences in the organization of knowledge and its representation (Chi, Glaser & Rees, 1982). Experts' knowledge is encoded around key domain-related concepts and solution procedures that allow rapid and reliable retrieval whenever stored information is relevant. Less skilled subjects' knowledge, in contrast, is encoded using everyday concepts that make the retrieval of even their limited relevant knowledge difficult and unreliable. Furthermore, experts have acquired domain- specific memory skills that allow them to rely on long-term memory (Long-Term Working Memory, Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) to dramatically expand the amount of information that can be kept accessible during planning and during reasoning about alternative courses of action. The superior quality of the experts' mental representations allow them to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances and anticipate future events in advance. The same acquired representations appear to be essential for experts' ability to monitor and evaluate their own performance (Ericsson, 1996; Glaser, 1996) so they can keep improving their own performance by designing their own training and assimilating new knowledge.

Bolger, F., and G. Wright, 1992, =91Reliability and validity in expert judgment.=92 In *Expertise and Decision Support*, G. Wright and F. Bolger, eds. New York: Plenum, pp. 47-76.

Camerer, C. F., and E. J. Johnson, 1991, =91The process-performance paradox in expert judgment: How can the experts know so much and predict so badly?=92 In *Towards a General Theory of Expertise: Prospects and Limits*, K. A. Ericsson and J. Smith, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 195-217.

Charness, N., R. Th. Krampe, and U. Mayr, 1996, =91The role of practice and coaching in entrepreneurial skill domains: An international comparison of life-span chess skill acquisition.=92 In *The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games*, K. A. Ericsson, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 51-80.

Chase, W. G., and H. A. Simon, 1973, =91The mind's eye in chess.=92 In

*Visual Information Processing*, W. G. Chase, ed. New York: Academic Press, pp. 215-281.

Chi, M. T. H., R. Glaser, and M. J. Farr, eds., 1988, *The nature of expertise*. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Chi, M. T. H., R. Glaser, and E. Rees, 1982, =91Expertise in problem solving.=92 In *Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence*, R. S. Sternberg, ed. Hillsdale , NJ Erlbaum, Vol. 1, pp. 1-75.

Dawes, R. M., 1994, *House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth*. New York: Free Press.

Djakow, Petrowski, and Rudik, 1927, *Psychologie des Schachspiels [Psychology of Chess]*. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter

Doll, J., and U. Mayr, 1987, =91Intelligenz und Schachleistung - eine Untersuchung an Schachexperten. [Intelligence and achievement in chess - a study of chess masters].=92 *Psychologische Beitr=E4ge*, 29:

270-289.

de Groot, A., 1978, *Thought and Choice in Chess*. The Hague: Mouton. (Original work published 1946).

Ericsson, K. A., 1996, =91The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues.=92 In *The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games*, K. A. Ericsson, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 1-50.

Ericsson, K. A., and W. Kintsch, 1995, =91Long-term working memory.=92

*Psychological Review*, 102: 211-245.

Ericsson, K. A., R. Th. Krampe, and C. Tesch-R=F6mer, 1993, =91The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.=92

*Psychological Review*, 100: 363-406.

Ericsson, K. A., and A. C. Lehmann, 1996, =91Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence on maximal adaptations on task constraints.=92

*Annual Review of Psychology*, 47: 273-305.

Ericsson, K. A., and J. Smith, eds., 1991, *Toward a General Theory of Expertise: Prospects and Limits*. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Glaser, R., 1996, =91Changing the agency for learning: Acquiring expert performance.=92 In *The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games*, K. A. Ericsson, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 303-311.

Hoffman, R. R. ed., 1992, *The Psychology of Expertise: Cognitive Research and Empirical AI*. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Proctor, R. W., and A. Dutta, 1995, *Skill Acquisition and Human Performance*. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Richman, H. B., F. Gobet, J. J. Staszewski, and H. A. Simon,

1996,=91Perceptual and memory processes in the acquisition of expert performance: The EPAM model.=92 In *The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games*, K. A. Ericsson, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 167-187.

Simon, H. A., and W. G. Chase, 1973, =91Skill in chess.=92 *American Scientist*, 61: 394-403.

Sloboda, J. A., J. W. Davidson, M. J. A. Howe, and D. G. Moore,

1996, =91The role of practice in the development of performing musicians.=92 *British Journal of Psychology*, 87: 287-309.

Starkes, J. L., and F. Allard, eds., 1993, *Cognitive Issues in Motor Expertise*. Amsterdam: North Holland.

Starkes, J. L., J. Deakin, F. Allard, N. J. Hodges, and A. Hayes,

1996, =91Deliberate practice in sports: What is it anyway?=92 In *The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games*, K. A. Ericsson, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 81-106

Taylor, I. A., 1975, =91A retrospective view of creativity investigation.=92 In *Perspectives in creativity*, I. A. Taylor and J. W. Getzels, eds. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Co, pp. 1-36.

VanLehn, K., 1996, =91Cognitive skill acquisition.=92 *Annual Review of Psychology*, 47: 513-539.

*Webster's third new international dictionary*, 1976. Springfield, MA: Merriam

[troppo]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news:92534374- [e-mail]:

Ditto. I went to the same school as a founder-member of the Rolling Stones, so I had to give it a shot, didn't I. The results weren't impressive. Later on my kids found the tape, played it once, then it disappeared. I suspect they buried it in the back yard to protect others from needless suffering.

[Extensively snipped]

Ok - I'll have a look at this ...

Now semi-retired eg working as a part-time consultant.

When I was part of a large agency, every so often I'd hear someone say "Ask [me] he knows everything ... " Not true of course, but they had a point - invariably I would either know the answer, know who knew the answer, or know how to find out the answer.

Well, I have to say, making it look effortless is what you do if you're an "expert" - that's part of the fun ...

Uh-oh. We been sprung ?

I have a relative who is (or was) one of the top economists in Europe. On the other hand, you wouldn't trust him with putting a 3-pin plug on the end of the cable. In the days before residual current devices, the result would be a loud bang or a fire ...

The problem with so-called intelligence tests is that apart from usually being heavily culturally specific, all they do is measure your ability to do intelligence tests. This is also a skill that can be acquired. I gradually improved to the level of borderline genius, would throw in a bit of theatricals, so they would say "How come? He wasn't even paying attention properly, kept making silly jokes ..."

When she reached an advanced age, my mother used to get regular visits from medical/social workers, who at some stage would introduce tests into the conversation, to see if her mind was working properly. She got wise to this, and got better at it as time went on, so when they finished their little test, she would say "See? Haven't lost my marbles yet have I?"

Yep - been there done that, from both sides of the fence. It's actually very difficult to "extract experts' knowledge". One reason is obvious. It is frequently not in the expert's interest to have his/her expertise "extracted". They are not daft - otherwise they wouldn't be an expert would they? So you sometimes get apparent cooperation, but stages get left out so the logic doesn't work :-) "Oh yes - there is another stage I forgot ..." A few "forgotten" stages and the researcher/auditor gives up and goes away.

On the other hand, some people's expertise appears to be almost entirely intuitive. I once worked for a building contractor, providing priced Bills of Quantities. He would give his estimate up front. If his figure and my totals didn't tally, I would go over my figures, and find the items I had left out. His figure was never wrong. The reason he was willing to pay me for the BofQs was that customers liked (or required) it all set out in tabular form.

Yes, we've all met this. Apart from people like me, there are those who start off reasonably competent, and then stop at a certain level, think they are an expert but don't learn anything new, or continue with attitudes (and technical knowledge, understanding of legislation) that is years out of date. They usually become executive managers. The Dilbert syndrome.

That's a reasonable explanation of how it works.

It's also represented by Agatha Christie in her character Miss Marple :-)

[Ken S. Tucker]

10,000 hrs/(40 hrs/week) = 250 weeks ~ 5 years. That's a specialization. [...]

I usually do well on IQ tests as my early hobby was solving puzzles and problems, still is. Most specialties require knowledge and experience and for architecture, artistic instincts. My current interest is "Automated Intelligence", applied to WW3, this is a quicky glance,

I'm still trying to 'get my feet wet'. Snipping agreeably... Ken