Sala Giovanni, Gobet Fernand
Department of Psychological Sciences, Bedford Street South, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZA, UK.
Mem Cognit. 2017 Feb;45(2):183-193. doi: 10.3758/s13421-016-0663-2.
Experts' remarkable ability to recall meaningful domain-specific material is a classic result in cognitive psychology. Influential explanations for this ability have focused on the acquisition of high-level structures (e.g., schemata) or experts' capability to process information holistically. However, research on chess players suggests that experts maintain some reliable memory advantage over novices when random stimuli (e.g., shuffled chess positions) are presented. This skill effect cannot be explained by theories emphasizing high-level memory structures or holistic processing of stimuli, because random material does not contain large structures nor wholes. By contrast, theories hypothesizing the presence of small memory structures-such as chunks-predict this outcome, because some chunks still occur by chance in the stimuli, even after randomization. The current meta-analysis assessed the correlation between level of expertise and recall of random material in diverse domains. The overall correlation was moderate but statistically significant ([Formula: see text]), and the effect was observed in nearly every study. This outcome suggests that experts partly base their superiority on a vaster amount of small memory structures, in addition to high-level structures or holistic processing.
专家们在回忆有意义的特定领域材料方面的卓越能力是认知心理学中的一个经典成果。对这种能力的有影响力的解释集中在高级结构（如图式）的获取或专家整体处理信息的能力上。然而，对国际象棋棋手的研究表明，当呈现随机刺激（如随机摆放的棋局）时，专家相对于新手仍保持着一些可靠的记忆优势。这种技能效应无法用强调高级记忆结构或刺激整体处理的理论来解释，因为随机材料不包含大的结构或整体。相比之下，假设存在小的记忆结构（如组块）的理论预测了这一结果，因为即使在随机化之后，刺激中仍会偶然出现一些组块。当前的元分析评估了专业水平与不同领域中随机材料回忆之间的相关性。总体相关性适中但具有统计学意义（[公式：见原文]），并且几乎在每项研究中都观察到了这种效应。这一结果表明，除了高级结构或整体处理之外，专家的优势部分基于大量的小记忆结构。
