Peak

This book is the culmination of several years of research. The scientists who authored the book call themselves “scientists of expertise”. They research what makes an expert in any given field and ask the question how does this happen? A first area of importance when authoriing this book was to first identify how people learn. There is only a limited amount of short term “working” memory that people have yet experts are able to summon multiple areas of knowledge and skills into performing an action. Take a violinist. To play the violin well it takes knowledge of reading music, fingering, pressure and angling of the bowstring. if any one of these elements during play are off it can cause a very beautiful song to sound awful when played by an unskilled person. We know from skills like driving that once they become second nature, it isn’t something the doing of the action becomes passive. This is thanks to “mental representations”. Someone who is well developed in a skill has clear and effective mental representations of the skill. In order to develop mental representations, the skill being practiced must be challenged just outside the person’s current ability level.