问答题 (46) Experts are individuals with specialized knowledge suited to perform the specific tasks for which they are trained, but that expertise does not necessarily transfer to other domains. A master chess player cannot apply chess expertise in a game of poker—although both chess and poker are games, a chess master who has never played poker is a novice poker player. Similarly, a biochemist is not qualified to perform neurosurgery, even though both biochemists and neurosurgeons study human physiology. In other words, the more complex a task is the more specialized and exclusive is the knowledge required to perform that task.
An expert perceives meaningful patterns in her domain better than non-experts. Where a novice perceives random or disconnected data points, an expert connects regular patterns within and between cases. This ability to identify patterns is not an innate perceptual skill; rather it reflects the organization of knowledge after exposure to and experience with thousands of cases.
Experts have a deeper understanding of their domains than novices do, and utilize higher-order principles to solve problems. A novice, for example, might group objects together by color or size, whereas an expert would group the same objects according to their function or utility. Experts comprehend the meaning of data and weigh variables with different criteria within their domains better than novices. (47) Experts recognize variables that have the largest influence on a particular problem and focus their attention on those variables.
Experts have better domain-specific short-term and long-term memory than novices do. (48) Moreover, experts perform tasks in their domains faster than novices and commit fewer errors while problem solving. Interestingly, experts go about solving problems differently than novices. Experts spend more time thinking about a problem to fully understand it at the beginning of a task than do novices, who immediately seek to find a solution. Experts use their knowledge of previous cases as context for creating mental models to solve given problems.
Better at self-monitoring than novices, experts are more aware of instances where they have committed errors or failed to understand a problem. Experts check their solutions more often than novices and recognize when they are missing information necessary for solving a problem. (49) Experts are aware of the limits of their domain knowledge and apply their domain's heuristics to solve problems that fall outside of their experience base.
(50) Psychologists and cognitive scientists agree that the time it takes to become an expert depends on the complexity of the task and the number of cases, or patterns, to which an individual is exposed. The more complex the task, the longer it takes to build expertise, or, more accurately, the longer it takes to experience and store a large number of cases or patterns.