The Expert Mind

Scientific American ^ | August 2006 | Philip E. Ross

[neverdem]

Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well

A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move. On the outer rim, dozens of amateurs sit pondering their replies until he completes the circuit. The year is 1909, the man is José Raúl Capablanca of Cuba, and the result is a whitewash: 28 wins in as many games. The exhibition was part of a tour in which Capablanca won 168 games in a row. How did he play so well, so quickly? And how far ahead could he calculate under such constraints? "I see only one move ahead," Capablanca is said to have answered, "but it is always the correct one."

He thus put in a nutshell what a century of psychological research has subsequently established: much of the chess master's advantage over the novice derives from the first few seconds of thought. This rapid, knowledge-guided perception, sometimes called apperception, can be seen in experts in other fields as well. Just as a master can recall all the moves in a game he has played, so can an accomplished musician often reconstruct the score to a sonata heard just once. And just as the chess master often finds the best move in a flash, an expert physician can sometimes make an accurate diagnosis within moments of laying eyes on a patient.

But how do the experts in these various subjects acquire their extraordinary skills? How much can be credited to innate talent and how much to intensive training? Psychologists have sought answers in studies of chess masters. The collected results of a century of such research have led to new theories explaining how...

[neverdem]

Printer friendly version had an error with the story truncated.

[saganite]

Even with the error I immediately and correctly inferred the remainder of the article without reading it.

[Texas Songwriter]

Expert....Someone who knows more and more about less and less.

[Milhous]

Expert....Someone who knows more and more about less and less.

Specialists asymptotically know everything about nothing as opposed to generalists who know nothing about everything. ;)

[Texas Songwriter]

Internist...someone who knows everything about every disease, but cannot do anything to fix the problem.

Surgeon...someone who know nothing about medicine, but can fix anything.

Pathologist...someone who knows everything about all diseases, can surgically access any disease, but never saves a patient.

Or ... something like that. Hell, it's been so long since I told that joke I think I missed the real punchline.

[adorno]

A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move. On the outer rim, dozens of amateurs sit pondering their replies until he completes the circuit. The year is 1909, the man is José Raúl Capablanca of Cuba, and the result is a whitewash: 28 wins in as many games.

Back in 1999, my son was still 15 years old. He had taken up chess when he was 14. So, he had a little more than a year's experience playing chess in 1999.

In the fall of 1999, a grandmaster from Russia visited my son's local chess club and set up an exhibition like that from Capablanca mentioned in the article. Except the Russian grandmaster only had 12 players against him of varying skill levels. By that time my son had a chess rating of about 1400. In that exhibition, the chessmaster from Russia lost 3 matches. My son was one of those "winners". The chessmaster was a little bit embarrassed. Even more embarrased when he found out my son was only rated at 1400 and the grandmaster had believed that my son must've been rated 2000 or better.

What does that prove? Don't know. Perhaps that not all "experts" are as good?

[Lancey Howard]

I just had a quadruple Yahtzee game. Sometimes you just get lucky.

[wideminded]

A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move

In Charlie Chaplin's autobiography he describes how he watched the chess prodigy Samuel Reshevsky, still a child, effortlessly defeal an entire roomful of adult chess masters. Reshevsky was able to tell Chaplin that he would be done very soon.

[Lancey Howard]

One of the funnier chess stories I read was in an old Sidney Sheldon book. (I'll recap from memory - - this is basically the story):

A rich con artist is on a cruise ship where he knows that there are two grumpy, feuding old grand masters also on the cruise. He begins talking himself up and after awhile he proclaims to the crowd of party-goers that he could play both grandmasters at the same time, in two different rooms, and NOT lose to both of them. That is, he would either tie them both or beat one of them.

Large wagers are made all around. The contest is arranged and by agreement the con artist will go first in one game and second in the other. So it begins: The contest starts in the room where the one grandmaster makes the first move. The con artist ponders for a moment and then, without responding with his own move, goes to the other room and makes the same first move against the second grandmaster that the first grandmaster had just made against him. He waits. In short order the second grandmaster answers with a move and the con artist, after appearing to ponder this move for a minute, returns to the first room and makes his move - - the same move that the second grandmaster had just made.

You see where this is going. Essentially, the con artist has arranged things so that the two games are actually one game with the two grandmasters playing each other. Obviously, the con artist cannot lose both games.

[Blowtorch]

Then this article was about people like you. ;)

[neverdem]

LOL!

[saganite]

Or maybe I lied!

[WaterDragon]

What an excellent article!