Expert Chess Players

In a study, three types of chess player were shown mid-games from chess that contained around 24 to 26 pieces for five seconds. The players were then asked to recall the position of each piece by reconstructing it using another chess set. The master chess player recreated 16 pieces successfully, the intermediate player recalled eight successfully, while the novice recreated only four successfully. However, when the same types of player were shown random board configurations (24 to 26 pieces arranged in random positions on the board) there were no differences in the number of successful reconstructions between them (each recalled about two or three). The reason why the expert's recall of random board configurations was so poor was that such a configuration is unlikely to be a typical board state and hence its meaning for the chess expert was no greater than for that of the novice. This study shows that experts do not have superior memories but rather chunk information in meaningful ways.

Similar studies have been carried out in other domains with similar results. For example, expert hockey players could remember more player positions that could non-experts when briefly shown a photograph from a game. In addition, expert volleyball players, but not non-experts, are especially good at identifying the location of the ball when shown a photograph from a game.

Experts appear to have developed more advanced problem schemas, which are knowledge structures for understanding problems within a specific domain. Some studied expert versus novice physicists on a series of physics problems. They found that while the novice physicists grouped information about the problem in terms of their structural characteristics, expert physicists categorised information on the basis of the laws of physics (such as Newton's Third Law). Through extensive experience, experts have gained knowledge of specific configurations of information that they can apply to problems. Another examined expert versus novice radiologists in their ability to detect disorders in X-ray films. Interestingly, experts were not only able to spot an abnormality more quickly but could also entertain several plausible diagnoses than could the novices. Novices tended to work backwards from a possible hypothesis.

If we want to know how experts acquired their expertise then the simple answer is that they practised a lot. Simon in 1980 estimates that it takes about ten years or 10,000 hours to acquire expertise in one domain. He argues that practice leads to "automatic" actions in response to a problem. Problem-solving can promote learning. However, the use of some heuristics, such as means-ends analysis, can hinder learning rather than help it (Sweller and Chandler, 1994). This is because experts themselves use schema-driven problem-solving methods and not means-ends analysis. Undirected problem-solving strategies can help the learner. In one example, Owen and Sweller (1985) gave a series of trigonometry problems and compared students who were instructed to calculate particular angles and sides (directed instructions) and others who were told to calculate as many angles and as sides as they could (undirected instructions). Greater learning occurred with the undirected instructions than with directed instructions.