Causes of expertise

10,000 hours, or not?Genius, or not?

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views: environmental• Ericsson et al. are “extreme”• Quotes:

Hmm…

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• Ericsson: Expertise “requires” practice to be

– 10k hours– Deliberate– “Motivated”

• “Falsified by one exception”– Hmm: only the strongest version of the theory would be.– “Exceptions”: Helen Glover (rower); Donald Thomas (high

jump); Crissie Wellington (Ironman)» What would constitute “practice” for these events?

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• The “insidious” claim

– Put in the practice– Don’t get the results– Who do you blame?

Refer to previous slide…

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• “Patent nonsense”

What – 50-60%? “Highly selected?”

See: Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalists Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown, revised (Harmony Books, 1999). A book on calendars and the idea of the millenium. Ends with a section on autistic calendar savants.

ISBN: 0609605410 (hardcover, 208 pages).

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• Only study experts• These don’t differ in “talent”• Doesn’t mean that talent doesn’t exist

– Fair enough– Go further…

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• Only study experts• These don’t differ in “talent”• Doesn’t mean that talent doesn’t exist

– Fair enough– Go further…

» If extremely talented individuals were to compete against each other, they’d have to indulge in tremendous amounts of practice to succeed, right?

» Only studying experts is a problem

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : environmental• Last point:

– What? – Where does Ericsson say anything about genetic limits?– Who’s to say everyone uses these this environment equally?

» This is truly patent nonsense

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : hereditarian• Odd – supposed to be refuting extreme hereditarian

views, but seems to spend all the time refuting Ericsson’s portrayal of such.

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : hereditarian• Critical periods

– Really “sensitive” periods– Fits with practice hypothesis – and the idea of positive

feedback and the “building block” approach to learning• Last point

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• “Nonsense”– Extreme views : hereditarian• Last point

– One more swipe at Ericsson– But again, fair enough– (same pt as before)

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• Common sense– Practice is important– Not everyone will be elite:• Physical limits• Injuries• Early experience/sensitive periods• Aging

– Amount of practice doesn’t explain remaining variance in performance among the elite

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• Science– Early experience• Not born with much• Everything is built from birth on

– By the age of 6 movement within cohort over next 12 years becomes less likely

– (note – this does not make it genetically endowed)

– Individual differences• Inter- and intra-…between and within

– Categorizes as abilities – back to square one!

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• Science– Traits and situations

• What the individual has, versus their situation– Again, what they have need not be genetically defined

• Talent ID– Yep, skipped forward– Talent ≠ genetic endowment

• Could be just the early experiences we’ve mentioned before• Simonton (1999, Psychological Review): “Any package of personal

characteristics that accelerates the acquisition of expertise”– These can be enhanced through some gene supporting certain features,

but the manner by which the gene supports any element is indirect

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• For more, see

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• Variation in performance rating and deliberate practice

• See also Polgar sisters…– The father wrote a book – Bringing up genius…

• Theme was that genius was made, not born!

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• Variation in hours practiced (alone) and performance rating in chess

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• Variation in hours performance rating deliberate practice in music (see details)

Article 2• Generally, 30% of variation in performance rating was due to

deliberate practice– Authors suggest this implies variation in number of hours taken to

attain expertise– Factors suggested to be associated with this variation:

• Starting age• Intelligence

– !

• Personality– !– Genes

» !

– Factors not suggested• Early experience? Mentorship? Supporting environments?

Readiness to learn?