WIPS
Abstract: In expertise acquisition, some types of domain-related experience are effective training in the sense that they contribute to faster improvements in performance than other types of experience. According to Ericsson et al. (1993)’s model of effective training as deliberate practice, effective training is guided by explicit cognitive representations of desired ways of executing an action or an action sequence, and it is motivated by intentions to cultivate better abilities and powers. This characterization of effective training is widely adopted by applied psychologists working on the acquisition of music, chess, sports, and other expertise. I argue that Ericsson’s model is not generally useful for demarcating effective training across domains, because different domains have varying demands of virtuosic motor movements, improvisational capacities, and physical traits such as strength, endurance, and bodily flexibility. For example, classical piano and gymnastics have high virtuosic demands; jazz and soccer have high improvisational demands; marathon and triathlon have high physical demands. Ericsson’s criteria of deliberate execution and cultivation are most useful for demarcating effective training to meet virtuosic demands, but less so for demarcating effective training to meet improvisational or physical demands.