Synopses & Reviews
Review
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance ... makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers - whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming - are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect.
Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, The New York Times Magazine and authors of FreakonomicsThis handbook was very much needed in a time when new environments and new roles emerge continually - when new experts must be trained or novel expertise programmed on short notice. Moreover, its organization, depth, and effectiveness of communication make it the ideal source for psychological researchers, trainers and instructional designers, and expert system builders who focus their work on the development of new expertise.
Alan Lesgold, University of PittsburghThe Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance brings together reviews by distinguished psychologists and computer scientists of the methods and results of studies of expertise. Besides a guide to the literature, the Handbook provides focused essays on experimental, observational, and analytical techniques for the study of expertise in a variety of domains. Policy makers and researchers alike will find this volume useful for years to come.
Clark Glymour, Carnegie Mellon UniversityThis book is a comprehensive and thought-provoking presentation of research and theory of expert performance that brings the field up to date since the seminal publications in the early 1980s. There has been much work on expertise, and this handbook is a significant collection edited by eminent people in the field. Readers will be informed about approaches to the study and analysis of expertise. Various fields are considered, including mathematics, history, memory, and chess. A range of mechanisms and issues influencing development are considered, including intelligence, tacit knowledge, deliberate practice, and self-regulation. Case studies are presented of expertise in creative thinking. This book is recommended to researchers and students working in this major field of cognition in highly competent performance.
Robert Glaser, University of PittsburghThis field of research on expertise has blossomed over the last 30 years. This book has brought together a who's who of research on expertise. Many of these chapters will be my standard references for years to come.
John R. Anderson, Carnegie Mellon University
Review
"The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers "whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming" are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect."
--Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, The New York Times Magazine and authors of Freakonomics
Review
"This handbook was very much needed in a time when new environments and new roles emerge continually - when new experts must be trained or novel expertise programmed on short notice. Moreover, its organization, depth, and effectiveness of communication make it the ideal source for psychological researchers, trainers and instructional designers, and expert system builders who focus their work on the development of new expertise."
--Alan Lesgold, University of Pittsburgh
Synopsis
This handbook provides comprehensive information about expert performance. It describes the processes, knowledge, and methods by which people climb to the highest possible levels of human performance. It highlights the research techniques and approaches that investigators use to gain insights about such extraordinary performance. Fifteen domains are examined in detail by the leading researchers in the field. General issues that cut across most domains are also reviewed in chapters on aspects such as general and practical intelligence, differences in brain activity, self-regulated learning, deliberate practice, aging, and creativity.
About the Author
K. Anders Ericsson is Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. In 1976 he received his Ph. D. in Psychology from University of Stockholm, Sweden, followed by post-doctoral fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University. His current research concerns the structure and acquisition of expert performance and in particular how expert performers acquire and maintain their superior performance by extended deliberate practice. He has published many books including Toward a General Theory of Expertise: Prospects and Limits and The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games.Neil Charness is Professor of Psychology at Florida State University and Research Associate at the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy. He is also the Director of the Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences area in the department of Psychology at FSU. He has written many articles and chapters on the topics of age, human factors, and expert performance. He is on the editorial board of Gerontechnology, Psychology and Aging and the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.Robert R. Hoffman, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist at the State of Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, which is located in Pensacola. He is also an Adjunct Instructor at the Department of Psychology of the University of West Florida in Pensacola. His research has garnered him a designation as one of the pioneers of Expertise Studies. Hoffman has been recognized on an international level in at least five disciplines - remote sensing, meteorology, experimental psychology, human factors, and artificial intelligence. Within psycholinguistics, he has made pioneering contributions, having founded the journal Metaphor & Symbol, and having written extensively on the theory of analogy. He is co-editor of the Regular Department Human Centered Computing in the journal IEEE: Intelligent Systems.Paul J. Feltovich is a Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, University of West Florida, Pensacola. He has conducted research and published on topics such as expert-novice differences in complex cognitive skills; conceptual understanding and misunderstanding for complex knowledge; and novel means of instruction in complex and ill-structured knowledge domains. Since joining IHMC, he has been investigating coordination, regulation, and teamwork in mixed groups of humans and intelligent software agents. He has authored nearly one hundred professional articles and two books.
Table of Contents
Part I. Introduction and Perspective: 1. An introduction to Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance: its development, organization, and content; 2. Two approaches to the study of experts' characteristics; 3. Expertise, talent, and social encouragement; Part II. Overview of Approaches to the Study of Expertise - Brief Historical Accounts of Theories and Methods: 4. Studies of expertise from psychological perspectives; 5. Overview of approaches to the study of expertise: brief historical accounts of theories and methods; 6. Expert systems: a perspective from computer science; 7. Professionalization, scientific expertise, and elitism - a sociological perspective; Part III. Methods for Studying the Structure of Expertise: 8. Observation of work practices in natural settings; 9. Methods for studying the structure of expertise: psychometric approaches; 10. Methods to assess the representations of experts' and novices' knowledge; 11. Task analysis; 12. Eliciting and representing the knowledge of experts; 13. Protocol analysis and expert thought: concurrent verbalizations of thinking during experts' performance on representative tasks; 14. Simulation for performance and training; Part IV. Methods for Studying the Acquisition and Maintenance of Expertise: 15. Laboratory studies of training, skill acquisition, and retention of performance; 16. Retrospective interviews in the study of expertise and expert performance; 17. Time budgets, diaries and analyses of concurrent practice activities; 18. Historiometric methods; Part V. Domains of Expertise: A. Professional Domains: 19. Expertise in medicine and surgery; 20. Expertise and transportation; 21. Expertise in software design; 22. Professional writing expertise; 23. Professional judgments and 'naturalistic decision making'; 24. Decision making expertise; 25. The making of a dream team: when expert teams do best; B. Arts, Sports and Motor Skills: 26. Music; 27. Expert performance in sport: a cognitive perspective; 28. Artistic performance: acting, ballet, and contemporary dance; 29. Perceptual-motor expertise; C. Games and Other Types of Expertise: 30. Expertise in chess; 31. Exceptional memory; 32. Mathematical expertise; 33. Expertise in history; Part VI. Generalizable Mechanisms Mediating Expertise and General Issues: 34. A merging theory of expertise and intelligence; 35. Tacit knowledge, practical intelligence and expertise; 36. Situational awareness; 37. Brain changes in the development of expertise: neuroanatomical and neurophysiological evidence about skill-based adaptations; 38. The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance; 39. Development and Adaptation of expertise: the role of self-regulatory processes and beliefs; 40. Aging and expertise; 41. Social and sociological factors in the development of expertise; 42. Expertise and creativity.