Researchers have concluded that practice does not, necessarily, make perfect.

A study of violinists found that merely good players practiced as much as, if not more than, better players, leaving other factors such as quality of tuition, learning skills and perhaps natural talent to account for the difference.

The work is the latest blow to the 10,000-hour rule, the idea promoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book, “Outliers,” which has been taken to mean that enough practice will make an expert of anyone. In the book, Gladwell states that “10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness.”

“The idea has become really entrenched in our culture, but it’s an oversimplification,” said Brooke Macnamara, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “When it comes to human skill, a complex combination of environmental factors, genetic factors and their interactions explains the performance differences across people.”

The seed for the 10,000-hour rule was a 1993 study of violinists and pianists which found that accumulated practice time rose with musical prowess.

Macnamara and her colleague Megha Maitra set out to repeat part of the 1993 study to see whether they reached the same conclusions. They interviewed three groups of 13 violinists rated as best, good, or less accomplished about their practice habits, before having them complete daily diaries of their activities over a week.

While the less skillful violinists clocked up an average of about 6,000 hours of practice by the age of 20, there was little to separate the good from the best musicians, with each logging an average of about 11,000 hours.

In all, the number of hours spent practicing accounted for about a quarter of the skills difference across the three groups, according to the study published in Royal Society Open Science.

Macnamara believes practice is less of a driver. “Once you get to the highly skilled groups, practice stops accounting for the difference. Everyone has practiced a lot and other factors are at play in determining who goes on to that super-elite level,” she said.

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【根深蒂固的】gēnshēn dìgù de entrenched firmly established and difficult or unlikely to change

【造诣】zàoyì prowess skill or expertise in a particular activity or field

研究人员得出结论说：熟不一定能生巧。

一项对小提琴演奏者的研究发现，如果不考虑教学质量、学习技巧和天分等因素的差异，水平过得去的演奏者和杰出的演奏者练习的时间一样多，甚至可能更多。

这一研究结果是对“一万小时定律”的最新挑战。马尔科姆●格拉德威尔在2008年著作《异类》中提出了这一定律，他的观点是只要练习得足够多，任何人都可以成为专家。在书中，格拉德威尔指出，“一万小时是铸就伟大成就的神奇数字”。

美国俄亥俄州克利夫兰凯斯西储大学的心理学家布鲁克●麦克纳马拉说：“熟能生巧的观点已经深深植根于我们的文化，但是这种观点过于简单化了。在人类技巧方面，要综合考虑环境、基因及其相互作用来解释人与人之间的表现差异。”

“一万小时定律”的依据来自1993年对小提琴和钢琴演奏者的一项研究，这项研究发现，累积练习时间越长，音乐技能越高超。

麦克纳马拉和她的同事梅格哈●麦特拉重复了1993年研究的一部分，想看看是否能得出同样的结论。研究人员调查了13名小提琴演奏者，按照最好、不错、较差水平三个评级将他们分成三组，让他们填写了自己一周活动的日记，并通过采访了解他们的练习习惯。

水平较差的小提琴演奏者在20岁前的练习时间平均约为6000个小时，但是不错的演奏者和最好的演奏者之间几乎没有差别，两者的平均练习时间都是11000个小时左右。这项发表在《英国皇家学会开放科学》杂志上的研究指出，这三组人之间的技能差异仅有四分之一是由练习时间导致的。

麦克纳马拉认为，练习的作用并没有那么大。她说：“一旦你达到了较高的水平，练习带来的差别就消失了。每个人都进行了大量练习，能否达到顶尖水平就取决于其他因素了。”

(chinadaily.com.cn)