CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF MOTOR EXPERTISE

Current approaches to examining the nature of expert performance in motor skills have been derived almost entirely from approaches to expertise used in cognitive psychology and, in general, have been influenced only minimally by theoretical advances in the motor control and learning field. In this paper the view is presented that future investigations of motor expertise should be tied more closely to conceptual developments in the motor control with learning field and that the selection of methods for studying motor expertise should be guided by a thorough consideration of the philosophical underpinnings of prevailing and emerging approaches. Attention is directed to current paradigmatic debates between cognitive and ecological/dynamical approaches to motor control and learning and to the philosophical bases of this debate. Assumptions and limitations in each approach are briefly considered, and the implications of each approach for methods of studying motor expertise are examined.