Anders Ericsson on Expertise

 

In a 2016 Good Life Project Podcast, founder, JonathanFields interviews K. AndersEricsson, PhD, about his research into the Psychology of developing one`s abilities as it pertains to becoming an expert in your field.  As Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, Amders Ericsson did research which  is probably the start of what is today the science of "Sport Psychology" and the relationship between an athletic`s mind and personal or physical development.

What started as a research project on a question of "How would one develop an ability to receit a long list of numbers; later advanced to a similar  study of violin and piano music students and resulted in what is now known as " 10,000 Rule of Expertise"  This suggests that. "To become an expertise one must invest at least 10,000 hours of practice" But the question then arrives as to what type of practice.

"If we take the task of reproducing a list of numbers.. at first a person recites to memory the numbers and can reach about 10... then it is found that a method has to be develop to remember more" Ericsson discovered that "humans have an inability to pay attention to a lot of things at the same time" "and we were interested in how could training really change that". The volunteer whom was being studied had reached a point of 10 numbers when he began a strategy of remembering the 1st three numbers and recalling from memory the remaining numbers and "eventually came up with a system which would allow him to do like 20 of these groups"

First important point is that eventually there was a need to develop a system or strategy to achieve the expertise wanted to be developed.  "But if you were sticking to doing more of the same you would never get beyond (a certain point) "but by shifting the strategy of using long term memory he was able to open up the space or possibilities" "and we studied others of his colleagues which also got to about 100 digits" "And now the current record (in 2016) is over 450 digits"

Secondly, "the amount of time it took to develop the skill to be able to do it". "This was over 400 hours during a couple of years" doing one hour a day. But "that intensity of being able to focus while being tested" "is part of the success of his training". "One of the things we saw here, and with many other experts; is the ability to concentrate during short periods".

"We are making a point between "purposeful practice" and "deliberate Practice". Those who have been able to reach the 450 ditits level are being taught the fundamentals and then like a music studiant work to practice these principles, they can achieve a high level of expertise. "By executing that system they are able to do vasely more than that individual that had to figure out for himself".

"That is a powerful idea.. if you can draw on what teachers have learned over time... about the best way of doing things... and as you get high and higher .. there are going to be few and few things which will allow you to reach one step further" toward your expertise.

Another interesting point is that although similar task or expertise in individuals, it may not be applied to different aspects of similar tasks. For example: The current Guinness World Record for recitual of the digits of π’s (pi)  is held by Lu Chao of China, who, in 2005 recited 67,890 digits of the value of pi. However,  about the same time, "Ericsson and his colleagues gave Lu as well as a group of people of the same age and education level, a test that measured their "digit span". (how well they could remember a sequence of random digits presented at a rate of one digit per second)". (Life Science) .

How did Lu do ? "Lu`s digit span was 8.83, compared with the average of 9.27 for the rest of the group"(published in 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.) Why ? Lu was using a method  "called the "memory palace"   which has (been) applied since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans and which involves using spatial visualization (as a mental method) to remember information such as digits, faces or lists of words. ( read how at Life Science) .

Further in the podcast interview Ericsson states " I know of historial examples of people who had to relearn how they were doing things in order to advance to the next level of mastery" 

  Sometimes an mental ability can be transfer to a similar newly defined ability by translation of that ability but often the individual on reaching his plateau of performance must now find a new mental application to build his future advancements. " 

Next blog will look at the type of practice and the mental development which this podcast suggest is possible.