The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance
by K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, Robert R. Hoffman · first published 2006
64% recommend32% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Academic, research-based survey of expertise and deliberate practice across fields, including professional writing. Suits readers who want the evidence behind the 10,000-hour idea rather than pop-sci summaries.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"This is the first handbook where the world's foremost ?experts on expertise? review our scientific knowledge on expertise and expert performance and how experts may differ from non-experts in terms of their development, training, reasoning, knowledge, social support, and innate talent. Methods are described for the study of experts' knowledge and their performance of representative tasks from their domain of expertise. The development of expertise is also studied by retrospective interviews and the daily lives of experts are studied with diaries" -- publisher website (July 2007).
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…aren't pop-sci / business books? I am kind of biased, since I love this area of psychology. - The Sciences of the Artificial by Simon - The Psychology of Problem Solving by Davidson & Sternberg - The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) by Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich & Hoffman - Minds, Brains and Computers - The Foundations of Cognitive Science: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies) -…
on “Ask HN: What books to read on developing mental models and increasing cognition?” ↗…off people in the Western world (which I think describes a large part of this board), there really isn't anything holding you back. Ericsson et al. published a review of this field (expertise) in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbo...). It's 900 pages but if you can't make it through a serious book then you sure as hell can't succeed in anything that requires real dedication.
on “Why “just do it” is bullshit” ↗…elusive, like you're wildly tweaking screen settings things to fix a kernel bug. I am also oversimplifying a bit for brevity here, but there's some books on the topic. For an in depth review, there's the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance"[0]. For a lighter book more along the lines of Outliers, theres "The Talent Code"[1] by Daniel Coyle. AFAIK, both draw from the Cambridge book. Both of them are worth a look, the 10,000 hour rule might…
on “Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong: here’s what got oversimplified” ↗…papers that put forth the theory of deliberate practice and the 10,000 hour rule (though in the paper it is given as a 10-year rule): http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti... The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance also covers a wide range of research on performance and expertise in various areas http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbo...
on “Can a complete novice become a golf pro with 10,000 hours of practice?” ↗I can recommend reading "The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance I upvoted your comment to agree with your recommendation of the definitive book on the subject. http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbo... To answer the question you pose above…
on “Can a complete novice become a golf pro with 10,000 hours of practice?” ↗"The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" - http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbo... Here are some excerpts: - http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.ht... - http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.mem.exp.htm...
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011” ↗…time Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Ericsson's research. Google Scholar notes some of his most-cited papers, http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ym0clGUAAAAJ&hl=en and there is a whole book, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance about that line of research that is well worth a read. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cog...
on “Why Malcolm Gladwell Matters and Why That's Unfortunate” ↗…with "igon values". I'm unfamiliar with the literature, real scientific literature Blink was based on. 10,000 Hours or whatever it's actually called is based on the study of expertise in psychology. The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance covers it in depth. K. Anders Ericsson founded the field.
on “How Not to Explain Success” ↗This list of books may sum up my entire personhood, some I read at a young age. Thinking Fast and Slow. After you read it take a course on statistics & probability. The Art of Strategy The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance Armor by John Steakley Great book of fiction, helped me understand PTSD. Read a lot of Asimov, robot series, foundation and short stories starting with The Last Question. Jules Verne Mark Twain, various…
on “Ask HN: Life Changing Books?” ↗…commonly applied to things like playing the violin? I haven't seen many cases of it being applied to coding, nor language learning, in the academic papers I've read anyway... I can recommend reading "The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance", it paints a clear pictures of what Expertise actually is.
on “Can a complete novice become a golf pro with 10,000 hours of practice?” ↗…writing - highly skilled, solitary, large "page size" - and I think the following excerpt could be enlightening. From chapter 22, "Professional Writing Expertise" (Ronald T. Kellog), in the excellent Cambridge Handbook Of Expertise and Expert Performance: ...the converging point are that ... all of the idiosyncratic habits of professional writers (1) focus attention inward by eliminating distractions, (2) may alter consciousness to facilitate entry…
…passionate about what they do well in, and you can't do well until you've gotten over the vicious first humps. What gets the non-born-passionate over the humps is simple dedication. You might enjoy the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. Or, for lighter reading, Kathy Sierra's blog/conference talks, which are based on a lot of that same research but much more fun to listen to.
on “Do What You Love? Screw That” ↗…someone's fantasy, it's based on an increasingly large body of evidence, but this article just dismisses the evidence with a wave of the hand and some assertions. A good selection of research is in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. Other people here have mentioned also that it's a specific kind of practice that's called for, not just mindlessly amassing hours, but rather relentlessly working on your weak spots and on skills that…
on “10,000 Hours of Practice Won’t Make You an Expert” ↗Times like this, I wish everyone could be made to read _The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance_ ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/cambridge-expertise.pdf ) or at least the original deliberate-practice paper ( http://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-ericsson-deliberatepractice.p... ).
on “How To Become A Better Programmer By Not Programming” ↗"The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" is an awesome read, I recently bought it and started reading it. Here are some really cool excerpts from the book: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.ht... http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.mem.exp.htm...
on “Ask HN: What books to read on developing mental models and increasing cognition?” ↗