Public lectures by K. Anders Ericsson at UNSW
The School of Education, University of New South Wales,
wishes to announce two public lectures
to be presented by K. Anders Ericsson
All welcome

Details of the two lectures are below.
Enquiries to John Sweller: j.sweller@unsw.edu.au

Biographical details: K. Anders Ericsson
K. Anders Ericsson is one of the world's leading cognitive psychologists whose work on the cognitive bases of expert performance has revolutionized our understanding of human cognition. His work has profound implications for the foundations of ability and skill and their associated educational processes. He is presently Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He received his B.A. and Ph. D. in Psychology from University of Stockholm, Sweden, and moved to a post-doc with Herbert Simon at Carnegie-Mellon University followed by a faculty position at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He is currently one of the editors for the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, which is scheduled to be published mid - 2006. He is a Stanley-Hall Lecturer and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and of the American Psychological Association (Division 3). He has published five books and over 150 publications in Science, American Scientist, Psychological Review, Annual Review of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. This year his paper on expert performance in medicine was given the Outstanding Research Publication Award by the American Educational Research Association (Division I). His webpage is http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html
Lecture 1
Verbal Reports of Thinking Mediating Exceptional Memory:
From introspective descriptions of photographic memory to data on experimental analyses of performance
by
K. Anders Ericsson
Department of Psychology
The Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida

In the 19th century efforts to understand human excellence were primarily based on introspective analysis (Alfred Binet) and responses to questionnaires (Sir Francis Galton). It was common to ask people with exceptional performance to describe their abilities, such as the ability of some chess players to play without seeing the chess board (blindfold chess). Unfortunately, these reports were qualitatively different between chess players and there seemed to be no way to verify the reports objectively or examine observable outcomes with scientific methods. In this talk I will describe a different method to collect information on thinking by asking subjects to "think aloud" (Ericsson & Simon, 1984) and how this method can be combined with experiments to study the structure of acquired expert performance. In particular, I will demonstrate how it allow me and Bill Chase to describe the skills acquired by regular college students to recall lists of over 80 digits presented orally at a rate of 1 digit per second. The same methodology was later used to examine the structure of the memory of a waiter with exceptional memory along with the memory structure of a Memorist (Rajan) who has memorized 40,000 decimals of the mathematical constant-pi. The presentation will conclude with a theoretical account of exceptional memory (Ericsson & Kintsch's (1995) Long-Term Working Memory) and the evidence supporting the claim that any healthy individual appear to have the pre-requisite basic abilities to acquire this type of exceptional memory by extended training.

Place: Robert Webster Building, Webster A lecture theatre (1st floor). (Centre of campus on University Mall. Enter UNSW through Gate 14, Barker Street.)

Time: 6.00 - 7.30 pm, Wednesday, 3 May. Light refreshments to follow.

Lecture 2
What the Study of Expert Performers Can Tell Us about Human Modifiability and the Importance of Innate Talent
by
K. Anders Ericsson
Department of Psychology
Florida State University
Florida

In 1869 Sir Francis Galton (the famous advocate of eugenics) proposed that heritable physical characteristics of the body, such as the size of someone's brain, limit individuals' attainable performance and thus indirectly explain individual differences in physical and mental achievements. Even today many scientists assume that basic cognitive abilities are largely genetically determined, mature during development and remain fixed during adulthood in a manner roughly parallel to the growth in body size.
Recent research in many domains of expertise, such as chess, music and sports, confirms that some forms of nurture, such as mere experience with domain-relevant activities, have surprisingly limited benefits for enhancing performance, once an acceptable level has been attained. For example, some of us know recreational golfers who haven't improved after decades of active playing. However, the research on expert performance also demonstrates that focused appropriate training activities--deliberate practice--can dramatically change the human body and brain, and over extended time modify virtually all characteristics relevant to superior performance, with the exception of height.
The acquisition of expert performance through deliberate practice involves successive development of increasingly refined mental representations and mechanisms that give experts increased control over their performance and allow them to circumvent the limits that acquired everyday skills, such as typing and driving a car, impose on beginners' performance. Consequently, the development of expert performance will be primarily limited by the quality of the training environment and individuals' engagement in deliberate practice. Interestingly, the search for "perceived talent" (even in the absence of reliable objective evidence) still continues to influence the selection of "talented" children and it explains curious findings, such as why Canadian professional hockey players are five times more likely to be born in January than December.
Place: Mathews Lecture Theatres, Mathews A theatre. (Next to UNSW Library. Enter UNSW through Gate 11, Botany Street.)
Time: 6.00 - 7.30 pm, Wednesday, 10 May. Light refreshments to follow.