time. In fact, as explained earlier, it takes about 200 milliseconds for anyone to react to a
given stimulus—regardless of whether that person is an expert athlete or an unfit “couch
potato”! Remarkably, this finding suggests that there is little or no difference between the
average reaction time of Andre Agassi and that of a spectator picked randomly from a
courtside seat. The implication of this point is clear. The rapid reactions exhibited by top
athletes in sport situations do not reflect “hard-wired”, innate talents but are probably due
instead to acquired skills (such as the ability to read and anticipate what an opponent is
likely to do next). In short, expert athletes have a distinct anticipatory advantage over
everyone else, which makes it seem as if their reaction times are exceptionally fast.
The third problem for hardware theories of sporting expertise comes from research
findings on the age at which athletes tend to reach their peak level of performance (see
Ericsson, 2001b). Briefly, if expertise were limited mainly by biological factors, such as
the functional capacity of the brain and body, then we would expect that the age at which
athletes reach their peak would be around the time that they reach physical maturation—
namely, in their late teens. However, research shows that the age at which most athletes
attain peak levels of performance occurs many years later—usually, in the mid- to late-
twenties. This latter finding has challenged the validity of hardware theories of athletic
expertise.
In the light of the preceding evidence, expertise in sport appears to be “dependent on
perceptual and cognitive skills as well as on physical and motor capabilties”
(A.M.Williams, 2002b, p. 416). Put differently, knowledge-driven factors (software
processes) can account significantly for differences between expert and novice athletes in
a variety of sports (Starkes and Ericsson, 2003; Williams, Davids and Williams, 1999;
A.M.Williams, 2002b). To illustrate the extent to which exceptional athletic performance
is cognitively driven, consider how an expert tennis player and a relative novice might
respond to the same situation in a match. Briefly, if a short, mid-court ball is played to an
expert performer, s/he will probably respond to it with an attacking drive “down the line”
followed by an approach to the net in order to volley the anticipated return shot from the
opponent. In similar circumstances, however, a novice player is likely to be so
preoccupied with the task of returning the ball anywhere back over the net that s/he will
fail to take advantage of this attacking opportunity. In other words, the weaker player is
handicapped cognitively (i.e., by an inability to recognise and respond to certain patterns
of play) as well as technically. We shall return to this point in the next section of the
chapter.
Despite its flaws, the hardware theory of sporting expertise has some merit. For
example, there is evidence that people’s performance in certain athletic events is
facilitated by the type of musculature that they possess (Andersen et al., 2000). Thus top-
class sprinters tend to possess an abundance of “fast twitch” muscles which provide the
explosive power which they need for their event. Conversely, “slow” muscle fibres have
been shown to be helpful for endurance sports such as longdistance running and cycling.
Intriguingly, the field of hardware research in sport may serve in future as a natural
laboratory for testing the effects of genetic engineering. Indeed, Walsh (2000) suggested
that scientists may soon be able to modify existing hardware characteristics of athletes in
order to enhance their chances of achieving success in sport. For example, in an effort to
boost their chances of success, sprinters could be equipped genetically with more “fast
twitch” muscles, long-distance runners could be given the genes that create the blood-
Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction 160