The Road To Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games

382 Pages·1996·17.11 MB·English

by  K. Anders Ericsson (Editor)

The Road to Excellence
The Acquisition of Expert Performance
in the Arts and Sciences,
Sports, and Games
This page intentionally left blank
The Road to Excellence
The Acquisition of Expert Performance
in the Artsand Sciences,
Sports, and Games
edited by
K. Anders Ericsson
Florida State University
First published 1996 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Published 2014 by Psychology Press
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and by Psychology Press
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Copyright © 1996 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No partoftbis book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The road to excellence : the acquisition of expert performance
in the arts and sciences, sports, and games I edited by K.
Anders Ericsson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-2231-3 (alk. paper).- ISBN 0-8058-
2232-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-805-82232-8 (pbk)
I. Expertise. 2. Excellence. 3. Gifted persons. I.
Ericsson, K. Anders (Kar! Anders), 1947 -
BF378.E94R63 1996
153--dc20 95-52848
CIP
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality
oftbis reprint but pointsout that some imperfections in the
original may be apparent.
Contents
Preface vii
1 The Acquisition of Expert Performance:
An Introduction to Some of the Issues 1
K. Anders Ericsson
2 The Role of Practice and Coaching in Entrepreneurial Skill Domains:
An International Comparison ofLife-Span Chess Skill Acquisition 51
Neil Charness, Ralf Krampe, and Ulrich Mayr
3
Deliberate Practice in Sports: What Is It Anyway? 81
Janet L. Starkes, Janice M. Deakin, Fran Allard,
Nicola J. Hodges, and April Hayes
4
The Acquisition ofMusical Performance Expertise:
Deconstructing the "Talent" Account of Individual
Differences in Musical Expressivity 107
lohn A. Sloboda
5
The Acquisition of Medical Expertise in
Complex Dynamic Environments 127
Vimla L. Pate!, David R. Kaufman, and Sheldon A. Magder
6 Perceptual and Memory Processes in the Acquisition
of Expert Performance: The EPAM Model 167
Howard B. Richman, Fernand Gobet, James J. Staszewski,
and Herbert A. Sirnon
V
vi CONTENTS
7 Expertise in Reading 189
Richard K. Wagner and Keith E. Stanovich
8 Creative Expertise: A Life-Span Developmental Perspective 227
Dean Keith Sirnonton
9
The Childhoods and Early Lives of Geniuses:
Combining Psychological and Biographical Evidence 255
Michael J. A. Howe
10
The Rage to Master: The Decisive Role ofTalent in the Visual Arts 271
Ellen Winner
11
Changing the Agency for Learning: Acquiring Expert Performance 303
Robert Glaser
12
Expert Performance and the History of Science 313
Frederic L. Holmes
13 Capturing Expertise in Sports 321
lohn B. Shea and Geoffrey Paull
14
Labaratory Experimentation on the Genesis of Expertise 337
Richard M. Shiffrin
15
Costs of Expertise 347
Robert J. Sternberg
Author Index 355
Subject Index 365
Preface
The highest levels of perforrnance and achievernent in sports, garnes, arts,
and sciences have always been an object of fascination, but only within the
last couple of decades have scientists been studying these ernpirical phe
nornena within a general theoretical frarnework.
The origin of systernatic theoretical and ernpirical work on expertise is
linked to the serninal work on chess expertise by de Groot (1946/1978).
However, the primary stimulus for the ernerging interdisciplinary research
on expertise is generally attributed to a paper by Chase and Sirnon (1973).
They proposed a general theory for the structure of expertise that offered
ernpirical predictions for the structure of expert performance in a wide
range of dornains of expert performance, such as "any skilled task (e.g.,
football, rnusic)" (p. 279). Chase and Sirnon (1973) proposed that rnost
forms of expertise were the results of vast arnounts of knowledge and
pattem-based retrieval rnechanisrns acquired over rnany years of experi
ence in the associated dornain. Research on solving textbook problerns in
physics (Larkin, McDerrnott, Simon, & Simon, 1980; Sirnon & Simon, 1978)
showed that novices, that is, beginners with all the necessary knowledge,
had to work backwards frorn the question of the problern to identify
relevant formulas in a step-wise fashion. In contrast, physics experts re
trieved a solution plan effortlessly as part of their initial cornprehension of
the problern. Subsequently, Chi, Glaser, and Rees (1982) showed that phys
ics experts not only had rnore knowledge but better organized knowledge,
allowing thern to represent physics problerns in terrns of the deeper theo-
vii
viii PREFACE
retical principles, whereas novices' representations were based on the
presence or absence of surface features.
The first conference focusing on the interdisciplinary nature of studies
of expertise was organized in 1983 by Chi, Glaser, and Farr in Pittsburgh.
Their conference on The Nature of Expertise had scientists report on a wide
range of pioneering research on expertise in very different domains. The
presentations were later published (1988) and had a great impact on the
ernerging interest in the study of expertise.
In 1989, 6 years after that conference, Ericsson and Smith organized a
conference in West Berlin to assess the progress of research on expertise.
This conference was designed with the intent of producing an edited book
systematically covering the research in the major domains where expertise
had been studied. Hence, each participant in the conference had the dual
obligation of reviewing progress in that domain and reporting on more
recent original studies. The resulting book appeared in 1991 under the title
Toward a General Theory of Expertise: Prospects and Limits.
As a reflection of the growing interest in expertise, two important books
on specific topics of expertise have since appeared. A book based on a
conference in 1988 that had focused on "expert knowledge and the appli
cation of experimental psychology to expert systems development" (p. vii)
appeared in 1992 (Hoffman, 1992). Ayear later, Starkesand Allard (1993)
published an edited book on "cognitive issues in motor expertise."
In 1993, I started to invite scientists to a conference with a new and
different focus-the generalizable characteristics of the acquisition of ex
pert performance. The previously reviewed research (Ericsson & Smith,
1991) had shown that although expertperformanceindifferent domains is
behaviorally expressed in a variety of ways, the types of acquired mediating
mechanisms are remarkably similar across domains. Some earlier research
indicated that there may be a related set of characteristics with which expert
performance is acquired within and across domains. For example, Sirnon
and Chase (1973) proposed that individuals need to spend around 10 years
of intensive preparation in the domain before they can reach international
levels of performance. More recent examinations of the extended period of
preparation of elite performers revealed the critical importance of training
activities designed exclusively for improvement of performance (d eliberate
practice), which were found tobe distinct from playful interactions, com
petition, work, and other forms of experience in the domain (Ericsson &
Chamess, 1994; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993). Expert perform
ance in young adults was found to be closely related to the amount of
deliberate practice accumulated during the individual's entire career.
The central idea for this conference wastobring together the world's
foremost researchers on specific domains of expertise and related theoreti
cal issues, such as the importance of individual differences in ability and
PREFACE ix
innate talent for attaining expert levels of performance. The traditional
domains of expertise were all represented at the conference: chess (Char
ness), music (Sloboda), sports (Starkes), and medicine (Patel). In addition,
general mechanisms for acquiring expert performance in traditional do
mains of expertise were discussed by Herbert Simon. The issues of devel
opment and skill acquisition have been extensively studied outside the
traditional areas of expertise. Hence, leading researchers in the study of
creative expertise (Simonton) and reading (Wagner and Stanovich) were
invited to review and integrate the findings from their domains. Finally,
two presenters discussed issues concerning individual differences in early
preparation and innate talent for individuals with gifts (Winner) and genius
(Howe). All of the presenters were invited to summarize information about
developmental trajectories and training activities of expert performers in
specific domains and then to make proposals for characteristics that appear
to generalize across domains. To assess the generalizability and applicabil
ity of the presented ideas, several outstanding scientists with different
backgrounds were invited tobe discussants: Robert Glaser (education),
Lawrence Holmes (history of science), John Shea (motor learning and
sports), Richard Shiffrin (experimental psychology), and Robert Sternberg
(individual differences in abilities and intelligence).
A subset of these presentations were given as part of a symposium on
"The acquisition of expert performance: lmplications for optimal profes
sianal development" at the annual meeting of AERA in San Francisco on
April21, 1995. The main conference was successfully completed at Wakulla
Springs, Florida, on April27-30, 1995.
I hope that many readers will find the contributions in this book as
exciting as the speakers at the conference found them to be. Furthermore,
the findings presented in the book should be relevant on severallevels. First
the book summarizes our ernerging knowledge of the necessary conditions
for reaching international-level performance in many different domains: at
least around a decade of effortful practice under optimal training condi
tions. The controversy over the role of innate individual differences (talent)
has not been resolved, but the alternative accounts have been better articu
lated and range from innate generaland domain-specific basic capacities to
motivational differences predisposing some individuals to engage in fo
cused learning on a regular and extended basis. Perhaps the most useful
aspect of this book to researchers is that it raises numerous issues that
should stimulate future research and help expand the growing field of
research on expert performance.
On a more personallevel the book will be relevant to all who aspire to
reach their highest level of performance in their respective domain of
expertise. Most everyone who has traveled on the road to excellence has
reflected on how they can improve most effectively and perhaps have even