Universität Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany and Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory Image, Knowledge, Gestaltung at Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2014 Aug 22;5:923. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00923. eCollection 2014.
Learning curves have been proposed as an adequate description of learning processes, no matter whether the processes manifest within minutes or across years. Different mechanisms underlying skill acquisition can lead to differences in the shape of learning curves. In the current study, we analyze the tournament performance data of 1383 chess players who begin competing at young age and play tournaments for at least 10 years. We analyze the performance development with the goal to test the adequacy of learning curves, and the skill acquisition theories they are based on, for describing and predicting expertise acquisition. On the one hand, we show that the skill acquisition theories implying a negative exponential learning curve do a better job in both describing early performance gains and predicting later trajectories of chess performance than those theories implying a power function learning curve. On the other hand, the learning curves of a large proportion of players show systematic qualitative deviations from the predictions of either type of skill acquisition theory. While skill acquisition theories predict larger performance gains in early years and smaller gains in later years, a substantial number of players begin to show substantial improvements with a delay of several years (and no improvement in the first years), deviations not fully accounted for by quantity of practice. The current work adds to the debate on how learning processes on a small time scale combine to large-scale changes.
学习曲线被提出作为学习过程的充分描述，无论这些过程是在几分钟内还是几年内发生。不同的技能获取机制可以导致学习曲线形状的差异。在本研究中，我们分析了 1383 名年轻棋手的比赛表现数据，这些棋手至少要参加 10 年的比赛。我们分析了表现的发展，目的是测试学习曲线及其所依据的技能获取理论是否足以描述和预测专业技能的获取。一方面，我们发现，对于描述早期表现的提升和预测后来的棋艺表现轨迹，假设负指数学习曲线的技能获取理论比假设幂函数学习曲线的理论表现更好。另一方面，大量棋手的学习曲线表现出系统的、与两种技能获取理论的预测都不一致的定性偏差。虽然技能获取理论预测早期表现的提升更大，后期表现的提升更小，但相当一部分棋手会延迟数年才开始出现显著的进步（而在前几年没有任何进步），这一偏差不能完全用练习量来解释。本研究增加了关于小时间尺度的学习过程如何组合成大规模变化的争论。
