Take, for example, the game of poker -- really, any situation which presents more information than can be consciously processed will do, but poker is a decent example.
Which would you trust more? The intuition of:
- Someone who knows only the basics of the game, or someone who has studied it extensively?
- Someone who is oblivious to other people, or someone who attunes to others easily?
- Someone who just started playing poker, or someone who has played thousands of hours over the past 20 years?
Some intuitions are better than others.
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So what do you make of beginner's luck?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it has much to do with intuition. I suspect it has more to do with cognitive bias along the lines of the availability heuristic.
ReplyDeleteIf "beginner's luck" is indeed luck, then it shouldn't make any difference whether one is a beginner or an expert. Yet "expert's luck" isn't a commonly used phrased -- in cases where experts win, we're more likely to assume skill and experience than luck. But with beginners, we have to assume something else is "to blame" for their winning, due to their lack of skill and experience, so we call them "lucky."
But then...why does the idea of beginner's luck have legs? Why is it so persistent in the face of rampant losses?
We don't tend to remember the times when beginners lose, because losses aren't at all unusual. When beginners win, however, it stands out and we tend to remember it. When we think back, we remember only the times where beginners won, forgetting all the times they lost, thereby "confirming" to ourselves the idea of beginner's luck.
Much subconscious processing requires -- not just is supported by -- extensive practice, specifically for the purpose of getting it out of the conscious mind. I think of page 3 of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor. No way anybody plays that at full speed with their conscious mind. Even more absurd is the notion that you could play it at all without practice!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this.