Expertise: Research reports

Developing expertise

June 2005

Practice makes an expert

A comparison of expert video game players and non-players has found that gamers showed a 20% reduction in response times on a visual search test (meaning that, on average, gamers were some 100 milliseconds faster than non-gamers). Analysis showed that expert game players did not show differences in normal visual search patterns; they had simply become faster through practice.
The report was published in the June issue of Acta Psychologica. Full reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/wuis-gbn060905.php

October 2003

First steps in developing expertise

Learning to play a musical instrument involves two quite different sense media – sound and movement. Recent imaging studies have shown that professional musicians have highly developed links between these different perceptions, such that sounds activate areas of the brain that process movement, and movement such as silently tapping out musical phrases, evokes brain activity in areas involved in hearing. A new study now demonstrates that this sort of cross-linking occurs within twenty minutes of starting to learn an instrument (in this case, a piano). Novices were given ten 20 minute sessions, during which they heard musical phrases and learned to play them back on a digital piano. Those in the "map" group used pianos where five neighboring keys had appropriate notes assigned to them. The "no-map" group used pianos where the assignment of notes to the five keys was randomly shuffled after each training trial. Changes in brain activity were evident in all participants after one session, but after five sessions, the activity patterns were significantly different between the two groups. In the “map” group, motor areas of the brain were active when the participants listened to music, but this was not the case with those in the “no-map” group. The anterior region of the right hemisphere — an area previously implicated in the perception of melodic and harmonic pitch sequences — was also more active in the "map" group, suggesting it may be the area where the mental map representing the link between a note and a piano key is established.
The report appeared in the journal BMC Neuroscience. Full reference
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031013/music.html

August 2001

Practicing skills in concentrated blocks not the most efficient way

While practicing several different skills in separate, concentrated blocks leads to better performance during practice, it appears that this approach is not the best method of learning for long-term retention. The temporary improvement in performance that results from blocked practice hinders learning because it allows people to overestimate how well they have learned a skill. For long-term retention, it appears that contextual-interference practice (practicing skills that are mixed with other tasks) results in better learning. This may be because such practice requires people to repeatedly retrieve the motor program corresponding to each task (repeated retrieval is a major factor in making stored memories easier to access). Such practice also requires the person to differentiate the skills in terms of their similarities and differences, which may be assumed to result in a better mental conceptualization of those skills. The fact that blocked practice leads to better short-term performance but poorer long-term learning "has great potential to fool teachers, trainers and instructors as well as students and trainees themselves."
The research was reportd in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. Full reference
http://www.apa.org/releases/retention.html

About expertise

November 2004

Tone language translates to perfect pitch

The first large-scale, direct-test study to be conducted on perfect pitch has found that native tone language speakers are almost nine times more likely to have the ability. The study involved two populations of music students: a group of 88 first-year students enrolled at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China, all of whom spoke Mandarin, and a group of 115 first-years at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, none of whom spoke a tone language. In both groups, the earlier an individual began music lessons, the more likely he or she was to have perfect pitch. For students who had begun musical training between ages 4 and 5, approximately 60% of the Chinese speakers tested as having perfect pitch, while only about 14% of the U.S. nontone language speakers did. For those who had begun training between 6 and 7, approximately 55% of the Chinese and 6% of the U.S. met the criterion. And for those beginning between 8 and 9, the figures were 42% of the Chinese and zero of the U.S. group. Perfect pitch is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, with an estimated prevalence in the general population of less than one in 10,000.
Results were presented November 17 at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego.
The study, with graphic figures of the results and sound files of the test, is available at http://www.aip.org/148th/deutsch.html.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/uoc--tlt110804.php

October 2003

Patterns of brain activity differ with musical training, not cultural familarity

Unlike language, which elicits different activity patterns in the brain depending on whether it is a familiar or unfamiliar language, a new imaging study has found that music of another culture produces no differences in brain activity compared to music from your own culture. The study compared responses to Western and Cantonese music, and used 6 professionally trained American musicians and 6 people with little musical training. The study did however find that 30-second excerpts in the familiar style of music were more easily remembered, and also, that training affected the pattern of brain activity.
Their findings have been published in the September issue of NeuroImage. Full reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uow-pob101403.php

October 2002

Another link between music and language

New research augments earlier findings concerning the amount and distribution of gray matter in the brains of professional musicians. It now appears that musicians also have an increased volume of grey matter in the Broca's area, an area of the brain involved in the production of language. A critical factor appears to be the number of years devoted to musical training - at least for musicians under the age of 50. The research supports recent suggestions that musicians process music like an additional language.
The findings were published in the November issue of NeuroImage. Full reference
http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=021031&story=1

June 2002

More grey matter in the auditory cortex of musicians' brains

A German study has found that a region of the auditory cortex was more active in professional musicians listening to tones of varying frequencies compared to amateur musicians and considerably more active than that of non-musicians. More surprisingly, there was a very significant difference in the amount of "grey matter" in the part of the auditory cortex called the Heschl's gyrus. The structure contained 536 to 983 cubic millimetres of grey matter in professionals, 189 to 798 cubic millimetres in amateurs, and 172 to 450 cubic millimetres in non-musicians.
The report appeared in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. Full reference
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2044000/2044646.stm

August 2001

Another interesting facet to expert memory: how professional musicians process music

A magnetic-resonance study has found that professional musicians use their left brain more than other people when listening to music. In particular, while the planum temporale was activated in all subjects listening to music (a Bach piece), in non-musicians it was the right planum temporale that was most active, while in musicians the left side dominated. The left planum temporale is thought to control language processing. It may be that musicians process music as a language.This left-hand brain activity was most pronounced in people who had started musical training at an early age, as well as in those with absolute or 'perfect' pitch (suggesting that musical traits such as absolute pitch are the result of childhood training rather than genetic predisposition).
The study was reported in volume 11 of Cerebral Cortex. Full reference
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010816/010816-4.html

Chess experts and chess amateurs use different parts of their brain when they play

Professor Thomas Elbert, Ognjen Amidzic and colleagues at the University of Constance, Germany, used a new magnetic imaging technique to study chess players' brains in action. They found that mid-match activity in grandmasters' brains is mainly in regions thought to be involved in long-term memory - the frontal and parietal cortices. Amateur chess players relied more on the medial temporal lobe, which helps to encode new information, suggesting that they analyse situations afresh. The finding supports the idea that expertise depends on stored memory chunks that are called up when needed.
The report appeared in Nature, 412, p603. Full reference
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010809/010809-13.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1480000/1480365.stm

May 2001

Significant brain differences between professional musicians trained at an early age and non-musicians

Research has revealed significant differences in the gray matter distribution between professional musicians trained at an early age and non-musicians. It is most likely that this is due to intensive musical training at an early age, although it is also possible that the musicians were born with these differences, which led them to pursue musical training.
The study was presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 53rd Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA Reference
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-05/AAoN-Mtdc-0705101.php