Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T04:58:11.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

38 - The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance

from PART VI - GENERALIZABLE MECHANISMS MEDIATING EXPERTISE AND GENERAL ISSUES

By
K. Anders Ericsson
Edited by
K. Anders Ericsson ,
Neil Charness ,
Paul J. Feltovich  and
Robert R. Hoffman
K. Anders Ericsson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida State University
K. Anders Ericsson
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Neil Charness
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Paul J. Feltovich
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
Robert R. Hoffman
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
Get access

Summary

There are several factors that influence the level of professional achievement. First and foremost, extensive experience of activities in a domain is necessary to reach very high levels of performance. Extensive experience in a domain does not, however, invariably lead to expert levels of achievement. When individuals are first introduced to a professional domain after completing their basic training and formal education, they often work as apprentices and are supervised by more-experienced professionals as they accomplish their work-related responsibilities. After months of experience, they typically attain an acceptable level of proficiency, and with longer experience, often years, they are able to work as independent professionals. At that time most professionals reach a stable, average level of performance, and then they maintain this pedestrian level for the rest of their careers. In contrast, some continue to improve and eventually reach the highest levels of professional mastery.

Traditionally, individual differences in the performance of professionals have been explained by an account given by Galton (1869/1979, see Ericsson, 2003a, for a description). According to this view, every healthy person will improve initially through experience, but these improvements are eventually limited by innate factors that cannot be changed through training; hence attainable performance is constrained by one's basic endowments, such as abilities, mental capacities, and innate talents. This general view also explains age-related declines in professional achievement, owing to the inevitable degradation of general capacities and processes with age (see also Krampe & Charness, Chapter 40).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance , pp. 683 - 704
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abernethy, B. (1991). Visual search strategies and decision-making in sport. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 22, 189–210.Google Scholar
Anderson, J. R. (1982). Acquisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review, 89, 369–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bédard, J., & Chi, M. T. H. (1993). Expertise in auditing. Auditing, 12, (Suppl.), 1–25.Google Scholar
Bengtsson, S. L., Nagy, Z., Skare, S., Forsman, L., Forsberg, H., & Ullén, F. (2005). Extensive piano practicing has regionally specific effects on white matter development. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1148–1150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bloom, B. S. (1985a). Generalizations about talent development. In Bloom, B. S. (Ed.), Developing talent in young people (pp. 507–549). New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Bloom, B. S. (Ed.) (1985b). Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Book, W. F. (1925a). Learning to typewrite. New York: The Gregg Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Book, W. F. (1925b) The psychology of skill. New York: The Gregg Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Bryan, W. L., & Harter, N. (1897). Studies in the physiology and psychology of the telegraphic language. Psychological Review, 4, 27–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryan, W. L., & Harter, N. (1899). Studies on the telegraphic language: The acquisition of a hierarchy of habits . Psychological Review, 6, 345–375.Google Scholar
Camerer, C. F., & Johnson, E. J. (1991). The process-performance paradox in expert judgment: How can the experts know so much and predict so badly? In Ericsson, K. A. and Smith, J. (Eds.), Towards a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits (pp. 195–217). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chaffin, R., & Imreh, G. (1997). “Pulling teeth and torture”: Musical memory and problem solving. Thinking and Reasoning, 3, 315–336.Google Scholar
Charness, N., Krampe, R. Th., & Mayr, U. (1996). The role of practice and coaching in entrepreneurial skill domains: An international comparison of life-span chess skill acquisition. In Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.), The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 51–80). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Charness, N., Tuffiash, M. I., Krampe, R., Reingold, E., & Vasyukova, E. (2005). The role of deliberate practice in chess expertise. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 151–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Farr, M. J. (Eds.) (1988). The nature of expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Côté, J., Ericsson, K. A., & Law, M. (2005). Tracing the development of athletes using retrospective interview methods: A proposed interview and validation procedure for reported information. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, M. (Ed.) (1959). Writers at work: The Paris review interviews. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Dawes, R. M. (1994). House of cards: Psychology and psychotherapy built on myth. New York: Free Press. Google Scholar
Deakin, J. M., & Cobley, S. (2003). A search for deliberate practice: An examination of the practice environments in figure skating and volleyball. In Starkes, J. & Ericsson, K. A. (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 115–135). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Google Scholar
Groot, A. (1978). Thought and choice in chess (Original work published in 1946). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Denison, J. (2003). Bannister and beyond: The mystique of the four minute mile. Breakaway books.Google Scholar
Denney, N. W. (1982). Aging and cognitive changes. In Wolman, B. B. (Ed.), Handbook of developmental psychology (pp. 807–827). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Doane, S. M., Pellegrino, J. W., & Klatzky, R. L. (1990). Expertise in a computer operating system: Conceptualization and performance. Human-Computer Interaction, 5, 267–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, L. J., Baluch, B., & Ericsson, K. A. (2004). Dart performance as a function of facets of practice amongst professional and amateur men and women players. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 35, 232–245.Google Scholar
Dvorak, A., Merrick, N. L., Dealey, W. L., & Ford, G. C. (1936). Typewriting behavior. New York: American Book Company.Google Scholar
Elbert, T., Pantev, C., Wienbruch, C., Rockstroch, B., & Taub, E. (1995). Increased cortical representation of the fingers of the left hand in string players. Science, 270, 305–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ericsson, K. A. (1996). The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues. In Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.), The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 1–50). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2001). The path to expert performance: Insights from the masters on how to improve performance by deliberate practice. In Thomas, P. (Ed.), Optimizing performance in golf (pp. 1–57). Brisbane, Australia: Australian Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2002). Attaining excellence through deliberate practice: Insights from the study of expert performance. In Ferrari, M. (Ed.), The pursuit of excellence in education (pp. 21–55). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2003a). The search for general abilities and basic capacities: Theoretical implications from the modifiability and complexity of mechanisms mediating expert performance. In Sternberg, R. J. & Grigorenko, E. L. (Eds.), Perspectives on the psychology of abilities, competencies, and expertise (pp. 93–125). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2003b). Exceptional memorizers: Made, not born. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 233–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2003c). The development of elite performance and deliberate practice: An update from the perspective of the expert-performance approach. In Starkes, J. & Ericsson, K. A. (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 49–81). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Google Scholar
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 Starkes, J. & Ericsson, K. A. (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (pp. 371–401). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (2004). Deliberate practice and the acquisition and maintenance of expert performance in medicine and related domains. Academic Medicine, 10, S70–S81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., Delaney, P. F., Weaver, G., & Mahadevan, R. (2004). Uncovering the structure of a memorist's superior “basic” memory capacity. Cognitive Psychology, 49, 191–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. Th., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Lehmann, A. C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence on maximal adaptations on task constraints. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 273–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J. (1991). Prospects and limits in the empirical study of expertise: An introduction. In Ericsson, K. A. & Smith, J. (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits (pp. 1–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, D. H. (1994). Beyond universals in cognitive development (2nd. Ed.). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Fitts, P., & Posner, M. I. (1967). Human performance. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
Galton, F. Sir (1869/1979). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences (Originally published in 1869). London: Julian Friedman Publishers.Google Scholar
Gaser, C., & Schlaug, G. (2003). Brain structures differ between musicians and non-musicians. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 9240–9245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gawel, R. (1997). The use of language by trained and untrained experienced wine tasters. Journal of Sensory Studies, 12, 267–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaser, R. (1996). Changing the agency for learning: Acquiring expert performance. In Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.), The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 1–50). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1996). Full house: The spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. New York: Harmony books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grape, C., Sandgren, M., Hansson, L.-O., Ericson, M., & Theorell, T. (2003). Does singing promote well-being?: An empirical study of professional and amateur singers during a singing lesson. Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science, 38, 65–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gruson, L. M. (1988). Rehearsal skill and musical competence: Does practice make perfect? In Sloboda, J. A. (Ed.), Generative processes in music (pp. 91–112). Oxford, UK: Clarenden Press.Google Scholar
Hayes, J. R. (1981). The complete problem solver. Philadelphia, PA: Franklin Institute Press.Google Scholar
Helsen, W. F., Starkes, J. L., & Hodges, N. J. (1998). Team sports and the theory of deliberate practice. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 20, 12–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodges, N. J., & Starkes, J. L. (1996). Wrestling with the nature of expertise: A sport specific test of Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer's (1993) theory of “Deliberate Practice.” International Journal of Sport Psychology, 27, 400–424.Google Scholar
Hoffman, R. R. (Ed.) (1992). The psychology of expertise: Cognitive research and empirical AI. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krampe, R. Th., & Ericsson, K. A. (1996). Maintaining excellence: Deliberate practice and elite performance in young and older pianists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, 331–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I. Q. (1998). Brain plasticity and behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 43–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson K. A. (1998). The historical development of domains of expertise: Performance standards and innovations in music. In Steptoe, A. (Ed.), Genius and the mind (pp. 67–94). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McDaniel, M. A., Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1988). Job experience correlates of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 327–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinney, E. H., & Davis, K. J. (2004). Effects of deliberate practice on crisis decision performance. Human Factors, 45, 436–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moulaert, V., Verwijnen, M. G. M., Rikers, R., & Scherpbier, A. J. J. A. (2004). The effects of deliberate practice in undergraduate medical education. Medical Education, 38, 1044–1052.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, S. (1999). Regulation of learning strategies during practice: A case study of a single church organ student preparing a particular work for a concert performance. Psychology of Music, 27, 218–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plant, E. A., Ericsson, K. A., Hill, L., & Asberg, K. (2005). Why study time does not predict grade point average across college students: Implications of deliberate practice for academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 96–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plimpton, G. (Ed.) (1977). Writers at work: The Paris review. Interviews, Second Series. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Raskin, E. (1936). Comparison of scientific and literary ability: A biographical study of eminent scientists and letters of the nineteenth century. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 31, 20–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reif, F., & Allen, S. (1992). Cognition for interpreting scientific concepts: A study of acceleration. Cognition and Instruction, 9, 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robergs, R. A., & Roberts, S. O. (1997). Exercise physiology: Exercise, performance, and clinical applications. St. Louis, MO: Mosby-Year Book.Google Scholar
Rosson, M. B. (1985). The role of experience in editing. Proceedings of INTERACT ‘84 IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 45–50). New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Salthouse, T. A. (1984). Effects of age and skill in typing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 345–371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schneider, W. (1993). Acquiring expertise: Determinants of exceptional performance. In Heller, K. A., Mönks, J., & Passow, H. (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 311–324). Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Shanteau, J., & Stewart, T. R. (1992). Why study expert decision making? Some historical perspectives and comments. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 53, 95–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulz, R., & Curnow, C. (1988). Peak performance and age among superathletes: Track and field, swimming, baseball, tennis, and golf. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 43, 113–120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simon, H. A., & Chase, W. G. (1973). Skill in chess. American Scientist, 61, 394–403.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1997). Creative productivity: A predictive and explanatory model of career trajectories and landmarks. Psychological Review, 104, 66–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, C. (1958 ). From magic to science. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Sloboda, J. A., Davidson, J. W., Howe, M. J. A., & Moore, D. G. (1996). The role of practice in the development of performing musicians. British Journal of Psychology, 87, 287–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonnentag, S. (1998). Expertise in professional software design: A process study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 703–715.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sonnentag, S., & Kleine, B. M. (2000). Deliberate practice at work: A study with insurance agents. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 73, 87–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starkes, J. L., Deakin, J., Allard, F., Hodges, N. J., & Hayes, A. (1996). Deliberate practice in sports: What is it anyway? In Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.), The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 81–106). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ulijaszek, S. J., Johston, F. E., & Preece, M. A. (Eds.) (1998). The Cambridge encyclopedia of human growth and development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Valentin, D., Pichon, M., Boishebert, V., & Abdi, H. (2000). What's in a wine name? When and why do wine experts perform better than novices? Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society, 5, 36.Google Scholar
Vicente, K. J., & Wang, J. H. (1998). An ecological theory of expertise effects in memory recall. Psychological Review, 105, 33–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ward. P., Hodges, N. J., Williams, A. M., & Starkes, J. L. (2004). Deliberate practice and expert performance: Defining the path to excellence. In Williams, A. M. & Hodges, N. J. (Eds.), Skill acquisition in sport: Research, theory and practice (pp. 231–258). London, UK: Routhledge.Google Scholar
Williams, M., & Davids, K. (1995). Declarative knowledge in sport: A by-product of experience or a characteristic of expertise? Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 17, 259–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, A. M., Ward, P., Knowles, J. M., & Smeeton, N. J. (2002). Anticipation skill in a real-world task: Measurement, training, and transfer in tennis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 259–270.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×