Expertise

Expertise refers to the psychological processes that underlie the superior achievement of experts, who are typically defined as those who have acquired special skills in, or knowledge of, a particular subject through professional training and practical experience. The term expert has a long history that can be traced all the way back to the training of skilled craftsmen in the guilds of the Middle Ages. At that time most of the professional skills, such as shoemaking, tailoring, and weaving, were taught through an apprentice system, whereby adolescents worked for a master in return for being allowed to observe and learn the skills of the trade. When the apprentices had sufficiently learned the necessary skills enabling them to work independently, they often left the master and ...