Now the long version.
I came across a cool article in Scientific American a bit ago, and found myself seeing big implications for getting better at AH. The original article can be found
HERE, but let me share some of the highlights:
Being an expert depends more on EFFORT, and less on GIFTEDNESS, than usually thought. A good chunk of the article is spent detailing these findings…but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll use only a couple examples. In a clever move, researchers looked at the birthdates of professional soccer players – and found that they weren’t spread out all over (as random, genetic influences would be). Instead, players who went on to be pros were more likely to have birthdays that made them the oldest (and thus biggest, fastest, most skilled) players on their youth leagues. That maturity advantage made them more successful, and thus more likely to stay with and work hard at their game.
In chess, Grand Master status is both very rare and very difficult. It’s based purely on performance, not reputation, since international chess has a nicely validated numerical scoring system. Anyway, research on these folks has found a predictable learning curve that requires right at 10 years of hard work mastering the chess game play and strategy database. While you can’t get there as an idiot, one chess fanatic deliberately set out to raise Grand Masters – and ended up providing strong evidence that expert knowledge is largely learned. He intensively trained his kids starting in preschool, and eventually had them studying chess several hours per day. In the end, this got BOTH of his kids to Grandmaster status….There had NEVER been 2 GMs in the same family before; and his daughter was the very first female Grand Master ever. This statistically very unlikely outcome almost certainly was the result of the training, not the genes, involved.
Looking at the question from a historic persepective, expert prodigies like Mozart and Tiger Woods seem consistently have undergone intensive training programs from an early age. This provides further indirect evidence of the “nurture more than nature” hypothesis.
Expert performance is based on mastery of a significant body of skills and knowledge, not just on time invested in the area.
Those who do not achieve expert status usually plateau after reaching a satisfying level of performance, after which they no longer invest effort in further development. Simply spending more time at a given level does NOT produce skill improvement.
Now, it is also clear that experts PROCESS their skills differently than non-experts. Brain scan studies during expert activities show the masters rely on MEMORY function, not on ANALYSIS or thinking through problems. In other words, they’ve seen this situation before, and have already learned how to deal with it. This seems to be precisely why experts seem to work so quickly, since they don’t really have to think about it. They just remember similar data from their storehouse.
And that brings us to the second big concept I learned from the article. The brain can manage 5-9 items of information at a time, in general. That’s why most phone numbers have around that many digits, for example – you can remember them from the phone book until you dial them, without having to “memorize” them.
The key point, though, is this: the items of information are not single bits, but rather “chunks” of information. Newbies, having less knowledge, have to process each component separately, which is why even gifted newbs can’t keep up with the vets. On the other hand, the expert may have large blocks of information bound together with relationships they’ve learned by study or experience.
Just like chess masters flat out know a large library of openings and variations, Aces High experts know complex combinations of maneuvers and special relationships. For example, think about the high yoyo.
For a true novice, each stick movement needs to be processed..."roll slightly, pull back, reach peak, roll, nose down".
With time, those steps get combined into a single chunk of data...the "yoyo maneuver." At this intermediate stage, the pilot sees the sitaution develop, and more or less says "time for a yoyo." Its one piece of information, a single maneuver instead of steps. That makes it much faster to run, and more effective.
The expert just knows what to do. There isnt even a single thought...except maybe "Oh, no you dont" or [cue Vader} "I have you now..." Whatever the field, an expert doesn’t have to think his way through the problem – as the brain scan studies showed.
So how does this apply to Aces High?
1.
Most importantly, we need to realize that flight skill is LEARNED, not inherited genetically. 2. That means that
each of us CAN become expert at fighting our platform of choice. If we stall out at a given level, it does NOT mean that we can’t get any better, or that we will always stink at GVs, or fighters, or gunning in buffs. It just means we have to be willing to learn more.
3. If we have to think our way through situations, or if we have to break maneuvers into individual components, it means that we have to practice more…until they become second nature.
Experts REMEMBER during their combat, they don’t reason their way through the problems.4. Reputation does NOT predict expert status. (The authors talk about some famous wine “experts” who don’t perform any better than a newbie.) By the same token, BBS reputation, game rank, KPD, or other statistics can’t be used as a single measure of combat fighting ability.
These ideas both encouraged and challenged me. I have had to work for everything I’ve learned in this game…nothing has come naturally for me. Seeing “naturals” (like my son) jump in and get great KPD or hit % can be very discouraging, but after reading this stuff I realize that I can make up for that with learning and practice.
And if I can learn it, anyone can.
