The psychological study of skills came to the fore during the Second World War with the need to match the demands of new equipment such as radar, high-speed aircraft, and various sophisticated weapons to human capacities and limitations. More recently, the growth of sport as highly lucrative entertainment and as a medium of national pride and international diplomacy has raised competitive standards and led to studies of human performance at games and athletics in order to extract maximum physical and mental effectiveness.
The common feature running through all these types of skill is that the performer has to match the demands of a task to his capacities. He does this by applying some method, or, as it is often called, 'strategy' of performance. For example, a tradesman will select tools and manipulate them in ways which match his capacities for exerting force and exercising fine motor control to the requirements of the metal, wood, or other material he is using. Similarly, a barrister or negotiator will order the questions he asks in a manner which he judges will best enable his powers of persuasion to secure the outcome he desires. These strategies, it should be noted, are not typically concerned with single responses to stimuli, but with chains or programmes of action which look ahead from the situation that initiates them to a future goal or end result. Some strategies are more efficient than others, in that less capacity, time, or effort has to be deployed to obtain the results required. Skill consists in choosing and carrying out strategies that are efficient.
Almost every skilled performance involves the whole chain of central mechanisms lying between the sense organs and the effectors, but different types of skill can be distinguished according to the link in the chain where their main emphasis lies. For this purpose, the central mechanisms can be broadly divided into three functional parts: perception of objects or events; choice of responses to them; and execution of phased and coordinated action giving expression to the choice made. An example of perceptual skill is the ability of musicians to judge 'absolute pitch'. It depends upon the possession of a conceptual scale against which any note heard can be placed. The ability is sometimes claimed to be inborn, but studies have shown that it can be acquired, or at least greatly improved, with practice. Analogous skills occur in other occupations which require the making of fine discriminations, such as dyers distinguishing subtle shades of colour, steel furnacemen deciding when the colour of molten metal indicates that it is ready to pour, wool and other fibre graders assessing thickness by 'feel', cheese graders judging softness by pressure, and wine or tea tasters using a 'sensitive palate'.
Skills in making choices, or, as they are sometimes termed, 'decisional' skills, include the expertise shown in various intellectual pursuits, and also in games such as chess and cards. In all these cases, the perceptual data is usually clear and the precise manner of executing the actions required is unimportant: the essential for success is to decide upon the correct actions to take.
Examples of motor skills include sitting on a horse, riding a bicycle, or manipulating the controls of a car. Their essential characteristics lie in motor coordination and timing. They have attracted somewhat less research than other types of skill, probably because the knacks involved are largely unconscious.
Industrial and athletic skills display the characteristics of all three types. Perceptual factors enter into trades and crafts in the assessment and judgement of materials, and in observing the effects of tools such as drills and lathe cutters. In ball games they are concerned in the observation and assessment of the flight of the ball and of the moves made by other players. Motor skills are obviously involved in the fine manipulation of tools in trade and craft work, and in bowling, catching, or kicking and making strokes with bat, racquet, or club in various games. However, the core of all these skills, especially at higher levels of expertise, lies in processes of choice and decision. Thus high-level skill in craft and trade work lies less in the ability to execute particular manual operations, such as shaping clay on a potter's wheel or cutting cleanly through a piece of metal with a hacksaw, than in deciding what shape is needed or exactly where the cut should be made. Similarly, high-grade athletic skill lies more in the strategy of the game than in the ability to make accurate individual strokes or in sheer muscular strength. Again, in music, the soloist's skill transcends the mere playing of the instrument to the interpretation of the score.
Strategies are developed and become more efficient in the course of practice, and it is these rather than basic capacities that are amenable to training. Four points should be noted.
1. For improvement to occur with practice, some knowledge of results achieved by previous action (feedback) is required, and, broadly speaking, the more precise and direct this is the better. Early in practice feedback needs to be detailed, but when comprehension and action become organized into larger units the need for feedback within these is reduced. In extreme cases the units become 'automatic' in the sense that conscious attention to feedback no longer occurs and the performer has little awareness of what he is doing. When this stage is reached two results follow. First, because each decision covers a larger unit of performance, fewer need to be made, so that action becomes smoother and less hurried — the skilled performer 'seems to have all the time in the world'. Secondly, performance becomes highly efficient, but may also become rigid in the sense that it cannot be adjusted to meet changing circumstances. A high-grade yet versatile expertise involves a nice balance between such efficiency and flexibility.
2. Strategies and information acquired in training for one task may transfer to others: for example, techniques learnt when mastering a foreign language can be applied again when studying another language. Such transfer usually results in the later task being mastered more easily than it would otherwise be, but occasionally the reverse is true: for instance, the coordination between tilt and movement needed to ride a bicycle leads to gross oversteering if applied when riding a tricycle, and must be inhibited before the tricycle can be ridden successfully.
3. Improvement with practice is typically rapid at first, then more gradual but continuing over long periods: for instance, the speed of some repetitive work in factories has been shown to rise with time on the job over several years.
4. Once high levels of skill have been attained, they are usually well preserved over periods of many years. The fine edge of performance may be lost without continual practice, but can usually be regained relatively quickly.
Most discussions of skill have been concerned with men or women interacting with machines, tools, or other objects in their environment. It has recently been recognized that the concepts of skill can be applied also to the interaction of one human being with another. Social skill includes all the three types already distinguished. It includes perception of the needs and desires of others and of the effects upon others of one's own actions; decisions about how to react to the behaviour of, and communications from, others to achieve rapport and to influence them in ways desired; and on the motor side it includes the making of gestures, kissing, and modulations of the voice in expressing feelings such as sympathy. Social skill not only applies to relationships between individuals, but is essential for efficient leadership and communication in industry and other organizations, and is indeed necessary for living satisfactorily in any society.
(Published 1987)
— A. T. Welford
- Bibliography
- Argyle, M. (1967). The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour.
- Legge, D. (ed.) (1970). Skills.
- Singleton, W. T., Spurgeon, P., and Stammers, R. B. (eds.) (1980). The Analysis of Social Skill.
- Welford, A. T. (1968). Fundamentals of Skill.
- — — (1976). Skilled Performance: Perceptual and Motor Skills.
