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 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017 and by Psychology Press 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA Psychology Press is an imprint oft he Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1996 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No partoftbis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Productor corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. 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