because observed behavior is the result of interactions between environmental factors and genes during the extended period of development. Therefore, to better understand expert and exceptional performance, we must require that the account specify the different environmental factors that could selectively promote and facilitate the achievement of such performance. In addition, recent research on expert performance and expertise (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988; Ericsson & Smith, 1991a) has shown that important characteristics of experts' superior performance are acquired through experience and that the effect of practice on performance is larger than earlier believed possible. For this reason, an account of exceptional performance must specify the environmental circumstances, such as the duration and structure of activities, and necessary minimal biological attributes that lead to the acquisition of such characteristics and a corresponding level of performance. An account that explains how a majority of individuals can attain a given level of expert performance might seem inherently unable to explain the exceptional performance of only a small number of individuals. However, if such an empirical account could be empirically supported, then the extreme characteristics of experts could be viewed as having been acquired through learning and adaptation, and studies of expert performance could provide unique insights into the possibilities and limits of change in cognitive capacities and bodily functions. In this article we propose a theoretical framework that explains expert performance in terms of acquired characteristics resulting from extended deliberate practice and that limits the role of innate (inherited) characteristics to general levels of activity and emotionality. We provide empirical support from two new studies and from already published evidence on expert performance in many different domains.

/pdf/the-role-of-deliberate-practice-in-the-acquisition-of-expert-3j9768t5su.pdf

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

https://www.motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

/pdf/from-neurons-to-neighborhoods-the-science-of-early-childhood-3bfl5g72ow.pdf

From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development

Nine experiments of timed odd-even judgments examined how parity and number magnitude are accessed from Arabic and verbal numerals. With Arabic numerals, Ss used the rightmost digit to access a store of semantic number knowledge. Verbal numerals went through an additional stage of transcoding to base 10. Magnitude information was automatically accessed from Arabic numerals. Large numbers preferentially elicited a rightward response, and small numbers a leftward response. The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect depended only on relative number magnitude and was weaker or absent with letters or verbal numerals. Direction did not vary with handedness or hemispheric dominance but was linked to the direction of writing, as it faded or even reversed in right-to-left writing Iranian Ss

The mental representation of parity and number magnitude.

Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data show that infants use computational strategies to detect the statistical and prosodic patterns in language input, and that this leads to the discovery of phonemes and words. Social interaction with another human being affects speech learning in a way that resembles communicative learning in songbirds. The brain's commitment to the statistical and prosodic patterns that are experienced early in life might help to explain the long-standing puzzle of why infants are better language learners than adults. Successful learning by infants, as well as constraints on that learning, are changing theories of language acquisition.

/pdf/early-language-acquisition-cracking-the-speech-code-bf9adht4u8.pdf

Jacqueline S Johnson

Papers

Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language.