Research Design Connection: Expertise Influences Seeing
Being an expert influences what we see, literally – which may explain confusing conversations you’ve had with clients. As a press release from Johns Hopkins for a Wiley, Wilson and Rapp study reports, “Visual processing is influenced by experience.” People who were experts in Arabic and also those who didn’t know the language were asked by Wiley and colleagues to indicate if pairs of letters shown were the same or different, and the speed and accuracy of assessments were measured. Researchers found that, “Novices were quicker to differentiate letters while experts were more accurate. Yet the more features a letter had, the slower the novices were. Experts were just the opposite – the more horizontals, whorls and curves a letter had, the better they were at distinguishing it…The pairs that tripped up people who weren’t proficient in Arabic tended to look nothing like the ones that confused the pros. …
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