Cognitive expertise research and knowledge engineering

Abstract

This paper is a review of research into cognitive expertise. The review is organized in terms of a simple model of the knowledge and cognitive processes that might be expected to be enhanced in experts relative to non-experts. This focus on cognitive competence underlying expert performance permits the identification of skills and knowledge that we might wish to capture and model in expert systems. The competence perspective also indicates areas of weakness in human experts. In these areas, we might wish to support or replace the expert with, for example, a normative system rather than attempting to model his or her knowledge. The review of studies of experts in a number of domains reveals that, indeed, experts show enhanced competence relative to non-experts in many instances. This conclusion is arrived at by taking into consideration numerous methodological problems with the study of expertise. These problems have often resulted in poorer performance by experts than they were capable of in more ideal circumstances. However, circumstances in the real world are not always more favourable towards experts than those in the psychological laboratory. Hence in some cases, one finds no difference between expert and non-expert performance and in some extreme cases experts may perform at a lower level than non-experts due to the particular contingencies of their working environment. On the whole, it is possible through task analysis to identify those circumstances where expert competence is likely to be enhanced relative to non-experts, and those where it is not. Further, the research indicates that there are some sorts of tasks which people, expert or not, find particularly difficult. These tasks, such as ones that require complex probabilistic reasoning or weighting and combination of large numbers of cues, demand special attention from knowledge engineers. © 1995, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.