Some people are dramatically better at activities like sports, music and chess than other people.
Take the basketball greatStephen Curry.
What explains this sort of exceptional performance?
Are experts born, endowed with a genetic advantage?
Are they entirely made through training?
Or is there some of both?
This post originally appeared onThe Conversation.
These activities require a high level of concentration and arent inherently enjoyable.
As deliberate practice increased, skill level increased.
In a second study, Ericsson and colleagues replicated the finding in pianists.
With the exception of body size: You cant train to be taller.
Is It All About Training?
In the scientific literature, however, Ericssons views have been highly controversial from the start.
Renowned giftedness researcherFrancoys Gagnenotedthat Ericssons view misses many significant variables.
Furthermore, cognitive neuroscientistGary Marcusobserved:
Practice does indeed mattera lot and in surprising ways.
So How Important Is Training?
The study revealed that deliberate practice and skill level correlated positively with each other.
In other words, the higher the skill level, the greater the amount of deliberate practice.
Training history is certainly an important factor in explaining why some people are more successful than others.
No one becomes a world-class performer without practice.
People arentliterallyborn with the sort of specialized knowledge that underpins skill in domains like music and chess.
However, it now seems clear that training isnt the only important factor in acquiring expertise.
Other factors must matter, too.
What might these other factors be?
There are likely many, including basic abilities and capacities that are known to be influenced by genes.
Our research on twins further reveals that the propensity to practice music is influenced by genetic factors.
Research by other scientists is beginning to link expert performance to specific genes.
Based on these findings, North and her colleagues have called ACTN3 a possiblegene for speed.
How Can People Excel?
For us, the days of the experts are born versus made debate are over.
His research focuses on the origins of exceptional performance.Fredrik Ullenis Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
His research focuses on the neuropsychology of expertise and creativity, i.e.
the various brain mechanisms that allow us to perform at a very high level within a specific field.
Image byPhilby Illustrationvia Getty.
