Analysis of Expert Performance: The Second Step
After identifying collection of tasks that can capture the superior performance
of experts, one can apply the full range of methods of analysis in cognitive
psychology to examine the phenomena associated with a particular type of ex-
pertise. In the following sections we present a brief outline of the wide range of
observations that can be made to infer information about the processes media-
ting superior performance. We then discuss different research paradigms, such
as comparisons of performance by experts and novices in a small number of
tasks, and extended analysis of individual experts. Finally, we report on anal-
yses of particular types of superior performance, such as superior memory
performance.
Performance Analysis: Methods of Inferring Mediating Processes. It is clear that
one cannot directly observe mediating cognitive processes, but what can be
observed concurrently with cognitive processes can be related to the underly-
ing cognitive processes within the information-processing theory of cognition.
Figure 22.1 shows a number of different types of observations that can be col-
lected on any cognitive process. At the top of figure 22.1, cognitive processing
is represented schematically as a series of internal processing steps, as pro-
posed by the information-processing theory of human cognition. These internal
processing steps cannot, of course, be observed directly, but it is possible to
Figure 22.1
An overview of different types of observations on cognitive processes mediating performance on a
task, adapted from a figure in Ericsson and Oliver (1988).
Prospects and Limits of the Empirical Study of Expertise 533