On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:44 -0400, "Ted Carmichael" <[email protected]> wrote:
BTW - I wouldn't say the expert cannot explain why he has reached a certain conclusion. Largely speaking, she can. A blind person can tell you exactly what all the little raised dots and patterns mean. I just mean that, as expertise is built up, this process of articulation becomes unnecessary. And probably, in more complex domains, some subtle patterns are probably integrated into the architecture without awareness of them. In these cases, it would be more difficult and more complex to articulate what has led to the conclusion. However, the broad strokes of analysis are almost certainly readily available Empirical observation of experts trying to articulate their expertise is interesting - ala protocol analysis done of diagnosticians when trying to build an expert system. The physician reports: "I enter the patient's room, consult the chart and notice a high fever. I examine the patient and observe red spots. A culture test reveals x-bacteria, so I conclude the patient has measles." The camera observes: the physician enters the room, walks to the bed, says hello to the patient, picks up the chart and records the diagnosis of measles. what happened? the physician had read a news article about a measles epidemic on the subway to work, smelled the distinctive odor of chicken soup upon entering the room, made the mental link and came to the appropriate conclusion. Confronted with the record, the physician relates, "that was the way I was taught in medical school, so it is the correct protocol." It took a lot of thought before the physician was able to articulate what she really did when making the diagnosis. It revealed two distinct mental models of "diagnostic expertise" one based totally on experience and the other on "book learning." Correlation between the two was nominal. davew
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