Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P. J ., & Hoffman, R. R. (Eds.)
(2006). The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.
New York: Cambridge University Press.Expertise
Aschoff, Susan (May 27, 2006). Anyone can have his shot. St. Petersburg Times. Here is part of her interview with Karl Anders Ericsson.
You’ve been called the ringleader of the expert performance movement. What is that?
I started to do this work trying to understand how people could improve their memory. As I saw the tremendous effects of training on memory performance, I got interested in looking at people who were experts at other things. I was asking if those people who were successful in virtually any domain had done something to be that successful.So memory enhances expertise. You also talk about deliberate practice. Can you explain that to me?
Deliberate practice is to repeat what you’re doing so you can correct it. Experience does not improve performance. Some amateur golfers can play at the same level for 30 years, and they don’t automatically get better. Once people reach some acceptable level, they seem to get stuck there. In order to keep improving, you need to structure your training around specific goals. If you are a golfer, you don’t just stand there and hit balls as hard as you can.Do you mean that practice or experience is not everything it is cracked up to be?
Not all experts are performing at consistently high levels. Stockbrokers who invest in the market are not necessarily more successful than average individuals. Psychotherapists who have extensive training and experience are not more successful than those with much less training. We’re really not interested in socially defined expertise. We’re interested in expert performance where people can consistently do things at a superior level. Then we can start asking, what are they thinking when they’re successful, and how is their developmental history different?What about the child star, the one who can play concert violin at age 3 or hit the ball out of the park in Little League?
When we go back and look at these talented children, we see all kinds of training activities. When I read biographies of Olympic athletes, I found that even as children they set up competitive games for themselves -- how long it took to complete the obstacle course. Competition almost forces people to come up with feedback. Sounds like we’re all supposed to be stage parents. In the long run, most children will rebel. If a child doesn’t want to engage in deliberate practice, there’s no way you can force them. It’s problem-solving. You can’t push someone to do it if they don’t want to.Can you apply your research to many areas of expertise?
We’re doing research on police officers and critical care nurses. A lot of the things that happen for a critical care nurse or police officer -- it’s not like they’ve had that happen before. You want them to handle that first time successfully. We look at what the most skilled people do and think, and convert it to a methodology for all to use.
Bosman, E. A., & Charness, N. (1996) Age-related differences in skilled performance and skill acquisition. In F. Blanchard-Fields & T. M. Hess (Eds.), Perspectives on cognitive change in adulthood and aging (pp. 428-453). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bloom, B. (Ed.). (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballantine Books.
Bryan, W. L., & Harter, N. (1897). Studies in the physiology and psychology of the telegraphic language. Psychological Review, 4, 27-53.
Bryan, W. L., & Harter, N. (1899). Studies on the telegraphic language: The acquisition of a hierarchy of habits. Psychological Review, 6, 345-375.
Camerer, C. F., & Johnson, E. J. (1991). The process-performance paradox in expert judgment: How can experts know so much and predict so badly? In K. A. Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.), Towards a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits (pp. 195-217). New York: Cambridge Press.
Charness, N. (1997). Can acquired knowledge compensate for age-related declines in cognitive efficiency: Evidence from chess and bridge. Manuscript in preparation.
Chase, W. G., & Ericsson, K. A.. (1981). Skilled memory. In J. R. Anderson (Ed.), Cognitive skills and their acquisition (pp. 141-189). Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Chase, W. G., & Ericsson, K. A. (1982). Skill and working memory. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 16, pp. 1-58). New York: Academic Press.
In his summary review of this book chapter, author David Zach Hambrick reviews skill memory theory and relevant findings. He states: "Briefly, a positive effect of experience on memory for domain-specific information has been demonstrated in a wide range of domains. For example, Egan and Schwartz demonstrated the skilled memory effect using diagrams of circuits. Akin showed that architects recall building plans in terms of ordered patterns. Shneiderman showed that expert computer programmers had superior memory for lines of code from a meaningful, but not from a nonsense, FORTRAN computer program. Why are these findings important? After all, it only makes sense that experts would have better memory for domain-specific material than novices."
Cohen, D. Gene. (2005). The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, New York: Basic Books.
Here, Cohen sets out a positive scaffold for a relatively new perspective on aging. Cast in the light of four novel stages of psychological development during the later years of life, Cohen conceptualizes the aging process as neither a period involving deterioration of the mind and body nor as a phase of life characterized by an attempt to minimize inevitable decline. Rather, the aging process of older adults is presented as a time for potential new direction involving intellectual development, creative growth, and blossoming social relationships. Drawing on his own personal clinical experience, Cohen discusses a fluid and dynamic approach to the aging process that involves acquisition of advanced forms of thinking and reasoning that can be attained only from years of life experience. Indeed, throughout the text, he shares anecdotal accounts drawn from his personal interactions with family members and patients. On the basis of the findings of his own groundbreaking research, he presents retirement not as a negative concept characterized by boredom and deterioration but as a new phase of life filled with seemingly boundless opportunities for positive growth heretofore unavailable owing to time constraints associated with occupational responsibilities. To sum, in the context of providing a realistic but more optimistic perspective of aging, Cohen presents an excellent overview, in easy-to-read language, of contemporary and important research in the fields of developmental neuroscience. I found this book to be an excellent work which was both informative and enjoyable to read. It is written such that it would be beneficial for both laypersons and health care professionals.
Collier, Christopher Percy. (November 2006). The Expert on Experts: An Expert Guide to Expertise, Fast Company.com, Issue 110, p. 116. In a recent interview, Collier asked Ericsson to respond to the following four questions: (1) Is talent overrated? (2) What do you have to do to become the best? (3) Can you explain how deliberate practice works? and (4) So does experience matter?
Coyle, Daniel. (2007, March 04). How to grow a super-athlete New York Times Sports Magazine. Section 6, p. 36, Column 1.
"Every talent, according to Ericsson, is the result of a single process: deliberate practice, which he defines as "individuals engaging in a practice activity with full concentration on improving some aspect of their performance. Deliberate practice means working on technique, seeking constant critical feedback and focusing ruthlessly on improving weaknesses."
Critchfield, Thomas, S. (2007). Behavior Analysis and the Best of the Best: A Review of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Association for Behavior Analysis International Newsletter, 30(1).
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich, & Hoffman, 2006). The volume is essential reading for anyone who believes in the capacity of behavior analysis to make a difference in high-level human affairs. To be sure, this is not a behavior-analytic treatise, and challenges exist for those who imagine transporting behavior analysis into domains of peak expertise (more on this shortly). An important point not to be lost in the meantime is that that studies of expertise converge on a perspective that should hearten functional thinkers everywhere."" ... For those interested in a behavior analytic approach to exceptional performance, the Handbook provides an invaluable perspective on how others have explored this topic. It contains detailed descriptions of what expert performers do differently than others, how they acquire their skills, and how these things manifest in a variety of skill domains (including chess, medicine, mathematics, and software design). The most useful, and challenging, chapters for behavior analysts, however, are those that explain the scientific methods that have been used to study expertise."
" ... Would that some guidance existed about how to undertake a systematic investigation of elite human performance! As it happens, a great deal has been written about expertise and methods for studying it, a literature that is nicely summarized in
Crutcher, R. J., & Ericsson , K. A.. (2000). The role of mediators in memory retrieval as a function of practice: Controlled mediation to direct access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1297-1317.
Crutcher, R. J., Ericsson, K. A., & Wichura, C. A. (1994). Improving the encoding of verbal reports using MPAS: A computer-aided encoding system. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 26(2), 167-171.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990a). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Collins.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990b, Spring). Literacy and intrinsic motivation. Daedalus, 119(2), 115-140.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper Collins.
Dawes, R. M. (1994). House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth. New York: Free Press.
Dawes, R. M., Faust, D., & Meehl, P. E. (1989). Clinical versus actuarial judgment. Science, 243, 1668-1674.
Dobbs, David. (2006, September 15). How to be a Genius. New Scientist Magazine, 191(2569), pp. 40-43.
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. The handbook essentially tells us to forget the notion that genius, talent or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses.""It seems that the facility that we are so fond of calling talent or even genius arises not from innate gifts but from an interplay of fair (but not extraordinary) natural ability, quality instruction, and a mountain of work. This new discipline -- a mix of psychology and cognitive science -- has now produced its first large collection of expert reviews, the 2006 weighty, massive and comprehensive
Dubner, Stephen, J. & Levitt, Steven D. (2006, May 07). A Star is Made: Where Does Talent Really Come? New York Times Magazine.
Here, the authors comment that Karl Anders Ericsson and his colleagues gathered all the data they could, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. They studied expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer, golf, surgery, piano playing, Scrabble, writing, chess, software design, stock picking and darts. Their findings, collected in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, asserted that the characteristic that all of us commonly label as talent is vastly glorified. In other words, expert performers -- whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming -- are nearly always made, not born.
Dweck, Carol S. (2002). Beliefs that make smart people dumb. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Why smart people do stupid things (pp. 24-41). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ericsson, K. A. (1976). Approaches to descriptions and analyses of problem-solving processes: The 8-puzzle. Reports from the Department of Psychology, the University of Stockholm, Supplement No. 32 (Doctoral dissertation).
Ericsson, K. A. (1985). Memory skill. Canadian Journal of Psychology , 39 (2), 188-231.
Ericsson, K. A. (1988). Concurrent verbal reports on reading and text comprehension. Text , 8 (4), 295-325.
Ericsson, K. A. (1996a). The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 1-50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. In summarizing this book chapter, David Zach Hambrick states:
One of the greatest challenges facing researchers interested in expert performance is the limited access to experts. Experts are rare, particularly if one adopts a definition of expert performance in which the expert is defined as statistical outlier. Nevertheless, in research on expert performance, there are alternatives to laboratory studies. In this chapter, Ericsson describes three complementary alternative approaches.
Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.) (1996b). The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games. Mahweh, NJ: Erlbaum. Summary author David Zach Hambrick comments that:
This book covers skill mastery in many domains (golf, wrestling, chess, music), showing the commonalities that lie at the heart of exceptional, as apposed to average, performance (e.g. consistent, focused practices over years characterized by high quality feedback, the need for the individual to master self-regulation if he or she wants to increase skill over time, etc.). It also provides a cautionary tale, in the form of a golf pro who developed exceptional skill but who never achieved the type of fame or wealth of say a Jack Nicholas. Why? Because skill too narrowly defined, no mater how great, does not lead to achievement. You have to take in the total context (social, political, etc) if you want your "skill" to lead to widespread recognition. At least that's what I took away from my reading. While the book doesn't lay out an explicit "blue print" for applying it's information, it is still a wonderful resource for trainers or teachers looking to develop high level instruction and to mentor those pursuing peak performance.
Ericsson, K. A. (1998). The Scientific Study of Expert Levels of Performance: General Implications for Optimal Learning and Creativity. High Ability Studies, 9(1), 75-100.
Ericsson, K. A. (1999). Creative expertise as superior reproducible performance: Innovative and flexible aspects of expert performance. Psychological Inquiry, 10(4), 329-333.
Ericsson, K. A. (2000a). Expertise in interpreting: An expert-performance perspective. Interpreting, 5(2), 187-220.
Ericsson, K. A. (2000b). How experts attain and maintain superior performance: Implications for the enhancement of skilled performance in older individuals. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 8, 346-352.
Expertise refers to the mechanisms underlying the top-quality accomplishment 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 accountants, medical doctors, teachers and scientists, including individuals 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.
Ericsson, K. A. (2001a). The path to expert golf performance: Insights from the masters on how to improve performance by deliberate practice. In P. R. Thomas (Ed.), Optimizing performance in golf (pp. 1-57). Brisbane, Australia: Australian Academic Press.
Ericsson, K. A. (2001b). Protocol analysis in psychology. In N. Smelser and P. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (pp. 12256-12262). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
Ericsson, K. A. (2002a). Attaining excellence through deliberate practice: Insights from the study of expert performance. In M. Ferrari (Ed.), The pursuit of excellence in education (pp. 21-55). Hillsdale , N.J. : Erlbaum.
Ericsson, K. A. (2002b). Toward a procedure for eliciting verbal expression of nonverbal experience without reactivity: Interpreting the verbal overshadowing effect within the theoretical framework for protocol analysis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 981-987.
Ericsson, K. A. (2003a). The acquisition of expert performance as problem solving: Construction and modification of mediating mechanisms through deliberate practice. In J. E. Davidson and R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Problem solving (pp. 31-83). New York : Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A. (2003b). The development of elite performance and deliberate practice: An update from the perspective of the expert-performance approach. In J. Starkes and K. A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 49-81). Champaign , IL : Human Kinetics
Ericsson, K. A.. (2003c). Exceptional memorizers: made, not born. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(6), 233-235.
Ericsson, K. A. (2003d). How the expert-performance approach differs from traditional approaches to expertise in sports: In search of a shared theoretical framework for studying expert performance. In J. Starkes and K. A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 371-401). Champaign , IL : Human Kinetics.
Ericsson, K. A. (2003e). The search for general abilities and basic capacities: Theoretical implications from the modifiability and complexity of mechanisms mediating expert performance. In R. J. Sternberg and E. L. Grigorenko (Eds.), Perspectives on the psychology of abilities, competencies, and expertise (pp. 93-125). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A. (2003f). Valid and non-reactive verbalization of thoughts during performance of tasks: Toward a solution to the central problems of introspection as a source of scientific data. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10(9-10), 1-18 .
Ericsson, K. A. (2004). Deliberate practice and the acquisition and maintenance of expert performance in medicine and related domains. Academic Medicine, 10, S1-S12.
Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (August, 1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49(8), 725-747.
Ericsson, K. A. & Charness, N. (1997). Cognitive and developmental factors in expert performance. In P. J. Feltovich, K. M. Ford, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), Expertise in context: Human and machine (pp 3-41). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P. J ., & Hoffman, R. R. (Eds.)
(2006). The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Here, the editors and chapter authors argue that the trait talent is vastly glorified. Throughout, they argue expert performers -- whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming -- are nearly always made ... not born. To see a review of this book, click on the front cover image.
Ericsson, K. A., & Chase, W. G.. (1982). Exceptional memory. American Scientist, 70, 607-615.
Ericsson, K. A., Chase, W. G., & Faloon, S. (1980). Acquisition of a memory skill. Science, 208, 1181-1182.
Ericsson, K. A., & Crutcher, R. J.. (1991). Introspection and verbal reports on cognitive processes - two approaches to the study of thought processes: A response to Howe. New Ideas in Psychology, 9, 57-71.
Ericsson, K. A., & Delaney, P. F.. (1998). Working memory and expert performance. In R. H. Logie and K. J. Gilhooly (Eds.), Working Memory and Thinking (pp. 93-114). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Ericsson, K. A., & Delaney, P. F.. (1999). Long-term working memory as an alternative to capacity models of working memory in everyday skilled performance. In A. Miyake and P. Shah (Eds.), Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control (pp. 257-297), Cambridge , UK : Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., Delaney, P. F., Weaver, G., & Mahadevan, R.. (2004). Uncovering the structure of a memorist's superior “basic” memory capacity. Cognitive Psychology.
Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W.. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102(2), 211-245. In reviewing this article, summary author David Zach Hambrick writes:
The sine qua non of skilled cognitive performance is the ability to access large amounts of domain specific information. For example, it is estimated that chess masters have access to as many as 100,000 familiar configurations of chess pieces (Chase & Simon, 1973). As another example, in order to make sense of what he or she is reading, a reader must have access to information gained from previously read text. This is particularly true when reading complex technical material filled with jargon.
Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W.. (2000). Shortcomings of generic retrieval structures with slots of the type that Gobet (1993) proposed and modeled. British Journal of Psychology, 91, 571-588.
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. Th., & Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance Psychological Review, 100, 363-406. To see a greater summary of this article, go here. In his summary review of this same article, David Zach Hambrick comments:
This study was one of the first and arguably the most influential contributions to the expertise literature that defines and provides a detailed theoretical account of a key component of skill acquisition (deliberate practice) and assesses its contribution over the lifespan in the context of a complex and ecologically valid cognitive skill, the high-level performance of a musical instrument. The demonstration of a close relationship between achievement level and cumulated hours of deliberate practice is one of the most important and compelling contributions to the debate about the explanation of "talent" that has been published this century.
Ericsson, K. A., & Lehmann, A. C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence of maximal adaptation to task. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 273-305. In this summary review of this journal article, David Zach Hambrick comments that:
"The focus of this paper is the adaptability of human behavior to environmental demands. A major assumption of the talent view of expert performance is that while practice is necessary, asymptotic performance levels are constrained by stable, invariant constraints. By contrast, Ericsson and Lehmann assert that "The belief that most anatomical and physiological characteristics are unmodifiable and thus reflect innate talent is not valid for expert performance acquired through at least a decade of intense practice" (p. 279). The cite evidence from studies of expert performers (e.g., ballet dancers) showing that adaptations--for example, to the musculature--are the result of very specific types of stimulation. In addition, there is evidence showing no differences between experts and novices on general measures of cognitive and perceptual functioning. To illustrate, the correlation between IQ and domain-specific performance decreases with continued practice. (However, what does an initially stronger correlation suggest? One possibility is that general factors play a role early -- as Fleishman and Ackerman have proposed."
Ericsson, K. A., Nadogapal, K., & Roring, R. W. (Spring, 2005). Giftedness from the expert-performance perspective. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 28(3/4), 287-311.
Here, the authors argue that individuals appear to have developed their expertise gradually. For example, by early adulthood gifted musicians had, by virtue of starting earlier and / or practicing more, accumulated up to twice as much deliberate practice as highly skilled, but not exceptional, peers.
Ericsson, K. A., & Oliver, W., L.. (1988). Methodology for laboratory research on thinking: Task selection, collection of observations, and data analysis. In R. J. Sternberg & E. E. Smith (Eds.), The psychology of human thought (pp. 392 - 428). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., Patel, V. L., & Kintsch, W. (2000). How experts' adaptations to representative task demands account for the expertise effect in memory recall: Comment on Vicente and Wang (1998). Psychological Review, 107, 578-592.
Ericsson, K.A. & Pennington, N. (1993). The structure of memory performance in experts: Implications for memory in everyday life. In Davies, G.M. and Logie, R.H. (Eds.), Memory in Everyday Life. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Ericsson, K. A., & Polson, P. G. (1988). An experimental analysis of the mechanisms of a memory skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 14, 305-316.
Ericsson, K. A., Prietula, M. J., & Cokely, E. T. (2007, July/August). The making of an expert. Harvard Business Review, Volume 85(7/8), 5, 114-121. At the outset, these three authors state: "[N]ew research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill" (p. 115).
eight (8) pages, they challenges the conventional conviction that expertise and genius are synonymous with societal success. They mention how they studied data on the behavior of experts gathered by more than 100 scientists, continuously wrestling with the popular lore that geniuses are born and not made. They discuss scientific research that showed that experts are developed through years of dedicated practice and coaching, not simply born into their expertise. According to their findings, leaders can improve abilities through deliberate practice, feedback, and inner coaching. Regular practice is not sufficient alone to become an expert. Instead, to reach the highest levels in your field, you must reach to expand your abilities that are outside your comfort zone and you must do this in a continuous and disciplined manner. They state that becoming an expert is a long road (at least a decade) and requires guidance.For
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A.. (1980, May). Verbal reports as data, Psychological review, 87(3), 215-251.
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A.. (1993). Protocol analysis; Verbal reports as data: Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Bradford books/MIT Press.
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A.. (1998). How to study thinking in everyday life: Contrasting think-aloud protocols with descriptions and explanations of thinking. Mind, Culture, & Activity, 5(3), 178-186.
Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J.. (Eds.) (1991a). Prospects and limits of the empirical study of expertise: An introduction. In K. A. Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise (pp. 1--38). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J.. (Eds.) (1991b). Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., & Staszewski, J. J.. (1989). Skilled memory and expertise: Mechanisms of exceptional performance. In D. Klahr & K. Kotovsky (Eds.), Complex information processing: The impact of Herbert A. Simon (pp. 235-267). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. In his summary review of this book chapter, David Zach Hambrick states:
The early work on expertise showed that novice-expert differences in domain-specific performance can be accounted for by differences in amount of knowledge: experts are more knowledgeable than novices. For example, Chase and Simon estimated that expert chess players have a vocabulary of up to 50,000 patterns representing familiar configurations of chess pieces. While appealing to differences in amount of knowledge to explain expert-novice differences makes good sense, it presents what Ericsson and Staszewski call a "thorny" problem: How do experts process an enormous amount of information given that they are subject to the same basic information processing demands as novices? More specifically, How is it that experts bring more knowledge to bear on problem solving and skilled performance than novices and at the same time perform more quickly and accurately (p. 237)?
Gardner, Howard. (September, 1995). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition
Comment: American Psychologist, 50(9), 802-803. Here, Gardner comments on Ericsson and Charness's August 1994 article in American Psychologist, 49(8), 725-747. Here is his abstract:Counter to the common belief that expert performance reflects innate abilities and capacities, recent research in different domains of expertise has shown that expert performance is predominantly mediated by acquired complex skills and physiological adaptations. For elite performers, supervised practice starts at very young ages and is maintained at high daily levels for more than a decade. The effects of extended deliberate practice are more far-reaching than is commonly believed. Performers can acquire skills that circumvent basic limits on working memory capacity and sequential processing. Deliberate practice can also lead to anatomical changes resulting from adaptations to intense physical activity. The study of expert performance has important implications for our understanding of the structure and limits of human adaptation and optimal learning.
In short, Gardner disputes Ericsson and Charness's suggestion that all youngsters work in a given domain in roughly the same way, with the major distinguishing variable being the amount of deliberate practice. In belittling the role of individual differences in interest, motivation, and relevant computational powers or "intelligences," they undercut the power of their case.
And finally, to cite directly David Zach Hambrick's summary of Gardner's comments:
g is relatively impervious to practice effects and intelligent children are more likely to become "expert thinkers" than less intelligent children. In other words, basic abilities influence the ease with which and rate at which skills are acquired. Second, Gardner points out that people who are most likely to engage in extensive deliberate practice are also the people who are most successful in the domain. Third, Gardner questions whether laboratory tasks can really capture the essence of expert performance. Finally, Gardner contends that while training must play an important role in the development of expert performance, ignoring the influence of individual differences in organizmic factors such as motivation and "computational powers" diminishes the validity of Ericsson and Charness' proposal.Gardner challenges Ericsson and Charness' view that acquisition of and individual differences in expert performance can be explained solely in terms of amount of deliberate practice. Gardner's argument is that Ericsson and Charness make a weak case for the view that innate factors do not predispose certain individuals to learn certain skills faster than others. Gardner dismisses the deliberate practice notion for several reasons. First,
Germain, M. L. (2005, February). Apperception and self-identification of managerial and subordinate expertise. Academy of Human Resource Development. Estes Park, CO.
Germain, M. L. (2006a, February). A Chronological Synopsis of the Dimensions of Expertise: Towards the Expert of the Future. Paper presented at the Academy of Human Resource Development International (AHRD) Conference, Columbus, Ohio, February 22-26, 2006. Symposium. 9-2, pp. 194-201 (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED 492 666). For complete proceedings, see ERIC Document Reproduction Services No ED 491 487.
This paper concisely chronicles the evolution of the concept of expertise since the 1960s. After presenting the key themes of expertise throughout the years, we propose a breakdown of the evolution into three waves: information-processing wave, speed/problem solving wave, and emotional intelligence/ways of expertise wave. We then show the mimicking of this progression with other fields such as business and psychology while highlighting the probable characteristics of the "future" expert.
Germain, M. L. (2006b). Development and preliminary validation of a psychometric measure of expertise: The generalized expertise measure (GEM). Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Barry University, Miami, Florida.
Her item scale contained objective expertise items (the first 5 items of the measure below) and subjective expertise items (the remaining 11 items). The objective items were named Evidence-Based items and the subjective items were named Self-Enhancement Items because of their behavioral component. With a sample of N=307, the scale reliability (internal consistency, Cronbach Alpha coefficient) of the 16-item scale was high (.91 for the five Evidence-Based items and .92 for the eleven Self-Enhancement items).Her 16 items (see Wikipedia, 2007) are:
Germain, M. L. (2006c, April). Perception of Instructors’ Expertise by College Students: An Exploratory Qualitative Research Study. American Educational Research Association annual conference, San Francisco, CA.
Germain, M. L. (2006d, February). Stages of psychometric measure development: The example of the generalized expertise measure (GEM). Paper presented at the Academy of Human Resource Development International (AHRD) Conference, Columbus, Ohio, February 22-26, 2006. Symposium. 42-2, pp. 893-898 (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED 492 775).
This paper chronicles the steps, methods, and presents hypothetical results of quantitative and qualitative studies being conducted to develop a Generalized Expertise Measure (GEM). Per Hinkin (1995), the stages of scale development are domain and item generation, content expert validation, and pilot tests. Content / face validity and internal consistency of the scores of the GEM are discussed, as well as directions to ensure that the psychometric properties of the scale are theoretically and empirically sound. For a review of the complete proceedings, see ED 491 487.Abstract:
Gramza, Joyce & Limjoco, Victor. (March 24, 2007). Talent Vs Practice ScienCentral NEWS.
In this succinct but appealing commentary, Authors Gramza and Limjoco commence a brief discussion by wondering aloud if talent is something one is born with or can practice really make one perfect. They comment on research by Anders Ericsson and Paul Ward who state that their findings suggest that any novice can become an expert with enough of the right kind of training. To cite directly from their web page, "Ericsson and Ward say their findings suggest that any novice can become an expert with enough of the right kind of training. "It suggests that anyone with the right kind of practice will be able to dramatically improve their performance and it looks like they would be able to become experts with sufficient practice," Ericsson says. They suspect that what many people think of as "talent" may just be the motivation and commitment to continually challenge yourself.
Hamon, Paul. (November, 2006). A Book review of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, BPTrends.
" The book provides a great and comprehensive introduction into the whole filed of knowledge and expertise. The chapters on what make experts provide a detailed review of the research. For example, human experts usually rely on something like 10,000 rules. They normally maintain concept networks that are organized into around seven hierarchal levels. Thus, some rules are used to analyze a problem from a more abstract perspective, some are used for more specific analysis, while still other rules are very concrete and are only used when specific types of problems are encountered. Experience and new information play vital rules in the maintenance of expertise, and thus, an expert, (or a software system) separated from conferences and specific problems, soon begins to lose his or her edge."
Howe, Michael J. A., Davidson J. W., & Sloboda, J. A. (1998). Innate Talents: Reality Or Myth? Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 21, 399-442. To read the PDF version, including an
Open Peer Commentary, go to http://eisenberger.psych.udel.edu/PDF/10_Achievement_The_importance_of_industriousness.pdfHoffman, R. R. ed., (1992). The Psychology of Expertise: Cognitive Research and Empirical AI. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Kinsella, K., & Velkoff, V. A. (2001). An aging world: 2001 (U. S. Census Bureau, Series P95/01-1). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I. Q.. (2006). An introduction to brain and behavior (2nd ed.). New York: Worth.
Krampe, R. Th., & Ericsson, K. A.. (1996). Maintaining excellence: Deliberate practice and elite performance in younger and older pianists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, 331-359.
Larkin, J., McDermott, J., Simon, D. P., & Simon, H. A. (1980). Expert and novice performance in solving physics problems. Science, 208, 1335-1342.
Lazarus, Richard S., & Lazarus, Bernice N.. (2006). Coping With Aging. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson K. A.. (1998a). The historical development of domains of expertise: Performance standards and innovations in music. In A. Steptoe (Ed.), Genius and the mind (pp. 67-94). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson K. A.. (1998b). Preparation of a public piano performance: The relation between practice and performance. Musicae Scientiae, 2, 69-94.
Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson K. A.. (1999). Research on expert performance and deliberate practice: Some implications for the education of amateur musicians and music students. Psychomusicology, 16, 40-58.
Martin, Brian. (March 8, 2007). How to Become an Expert Here, Martin comments on the 2006 publication of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. He mentions two of the handbook's chapters which he believes are especially relevant to arts disciplines. To cite him directly, "One is the chapter on expertise in history, with assessment of research on expertise as it relates to ten (10) characteristics of history experts. The other chapter is the one on expertise and professional writing.
Morley, John E., & van den Berg, Lucretia. (Eds.). (2000). Contemporary endocrinology (No.
20).
Morrow, D. G., Leirer, V. O., & Altieri, P. A. (1992). Aging, expertise, and narrative processing. Psychology and Aging, 7, 376-388.
Patel, V. L.., & Groen, G. J.. (1991). The general and specific nature of medical expertise: A critical look. In K. A. Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise (pp. 93--125). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Richman, H. B., F. Gobet, J. J. Staszewski, and H. A. Simon. (1996). Perceptual and memory processes in the acquisition of expert performance: The EPAM model. 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.
Ross, Philip, E.. (July 24, 2006). The Expert Mind Scientific American, 295(2), pp. 64-71.
Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness argue that there must be some other mechanism that enables experts to employ long-term memory as if it, too, were a scratch pad. Says Ericsson: "The mere demonstration that highly skilled players can play at almost their normal strength under blindfold conditions is almost impossible for chunking theory to explain because you have to know the position, then you have to explore it in your memory." Such manipulation involves changing the stored chunks, at least in some ways, a task that may be likened to reciting "Mary had a little lamb" backward. It can be done, but not easily, and certainly not without many false starts and errors. Yet grandmaster games played quickly and under blindfold conditions tend to be of surprisingly high quality.
Rowe, J. W., & Kahn, R. L.. (1998). Successful aging. New York: Pantheon Books.
Here, the authors present the aging process as neither a period involving deterioration of the mind and body nor as a phase of life characterized by an attempt to minimize inevitable decline. Rather, they look at aging as a time for potential new direction involving intellectual development.
Salthouse, T. A.. (1984). Effects of age and skill in typing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 13, 345-371.
Salthouse, T. A.. (1989). Aging and skilled performance. In A. M. Colley & J. R. Beech (Eds.), Acquisition and performance of cognitive skills (pp. 247-263). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Salthouse, T. A.. (1990). Working memory as a processing resource in cognitive aging. Developmental Review, 10, 101-124.
Salthouse, T. A. (1991). Expertise as the circumvention of human processing limitations. In K. A. Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise (pp. 286--300). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Salthouse, T. A., & Mitchell, D. R. D.. (1990). Effects of age and naturally occurring experience on spatial visualization performance. Developmental Psychology, 26, 845-854.
Schaie, K. W., & Willis, S. L.. (1996). Adult development and aging (4th ed.). New York: HarperCollins. Here, the authors present data which suggests that the vast majority of older individuals remain in sufficient health to function independently, even well into the eighth decade of life.
Schutlz, R., Musa, D., Staszewski, J., & Siegler, R. S. (1994). The relationship between age and major league baseball performance: Implications for development. Psychology and Aging, 9, 274-286.
Simon H. A. (1995). Explaining the Ineffable: AI on the Topics of Intuition, Insight and Inspiration. Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1, 939-948.
Simon , Herbert, A. (1969) The Sciences of the Artificial (First Edition), MIT Press. Cambridge, MA (a shorter summary)
Simonton, D. K. (1997). Creative productivity: A predictive and explanatory model of career trajectories and landmarks. Psychological Review, 104, 66-89.
Schutlz, R., Musa, D., Staszewski, J., & Siegler, R. S.. (1994). The relationship between age and major league baseball performance: Implications for development. Psychology and Aging, 9, 274-286.
Shanks, David R. (1999). Outstanding performers: Created, not born? Science Spectra, Issue 18, 28-34. At the outset of his article, Shanks writes, and I quote directly: Outstanding levels of performance in areas such as memory, chess, sports or music are commonly ascribed to innate talent. Dr. David Shanks of University College, London, England, describes evidence for the role of deliberate practice in achieving these levels of performance and questions the need for the notion of talent. This "anti-nativist" hypothesis is also evaluated in the area of intelligence, where, again, it appears that outstanding levels of achievement may not be due to innate ability
To read his complete commentary, go to http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/david.shanks/shanks_expertise.htmlTheiler, Janine. (2003). A Comparative Study: Ericsson's theory of expertise and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
In this brief comparative commentary, Theiler comments on an explorative study whereby Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory was compared to Anders Ericsson's Expertise Theory. Repeatedly, Gardner emphasizes a view of achievement which reflect the specific abilities approach as addressed above. Ericsson, however, vehemently opposes this view and consistently professes the importance of a domain-specific training and practice perspective. What follows is a delving into the reasoning of these theorists for adopting such contrasting lines of attack.
Wikipedia. (2007). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert
Last revised on Sunday, 29 June, 2008