In 1993, psychologist Anders Ericsson challenged the concept of innate talent, asserting:
Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.
There is no question that years of deliberate practice or intense study are required to perform at the highest levels in sport or academic enterprises. Michael Jordan’s prolonged and intense practice was certainly a key factor in his rise to elite performance. Even Mozart’s precocity in composing music has been attributed to early immersion in prolonged, deliberate practice. ( See Michael Howe’s book, Genius Explained.)
In his bestselling book Outliers: The Story of Success, Macolm Gladwell popularized Ericssons’ research asserting that talent is a myth and exceptional performance is merely the result of about 10 years of deliberate practice. He asserted:
No one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time…To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about 10 years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him 9 years.) And what’s 10 years? It’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.
Following this publication, “ten thousand hours” became the catchphrase for dismissing the concept of talent and attributing different levels of performance to a difference in hours of deliberate practice. This would imply that Albert Einstein was no more intelligent than Joe Average: he just worked harder at physics.
However, subsequent research reveals that we humans do, indeed, differ in our potential abilities. Drawing upon research from MRI scans, Ellen Winner, a psychologist at Boston College states:
Indirect evidence indicates that gifted children and savants have atypical brain organization (whether as a result of genetics, the in utero environment, or after-birth trauma). First, giftedness in mathematics, visual arts, and music is associated with superior visual-spatial abilities, and children with mathematical gifts show enhanced brain activity in their right hemisphere when asked to recognize faces, a task known to involve the right hemisphere.
In her paper paper on giftedness, Winner calls attention to child prodigies whose talents emerge before practice is possible. In November 2016, Anatoly Karpov, who reigned as the World Chess Champion from 1993 through 1999, appeared on Russian television in what was billed as a dramatic chess match. His opponent Misha Osipov, an infant of 31/2 years, and barely out of diapers, appeared amidst the sensational pomp and circumstance designed to dramatize his prodigy. When the introductions were over, the blitz game began. Misha charmed the audience with his adult-like behavior. When the 66-year-old Grandmaster asked him what opening he was using, the focussed infant responded nonchalantly, “the Nimzo-Indian Defence.” In spite of all the television hype, it was clear that Misha had not only learned how to play chess extremely well, but he had also read books and internalized some of the opening moves of the modern Grandmasters. Though the game appeared to be in a deadlock, Misha’s clock ran out first and victory fell to Karpov. Unable to control his disappointment, little Misha wept and ran sobbing to “Mommy.” He was, after all, emotionally an infant, performing at a high level in an adult world. When he was called on stage to receive a gold medal, suspended around his neck with a scarlet ribbon and presented with a book autographed by Grandmaster Karpov, he smiled and ran to his mother to celebrate his new trophy and prepare for a brilliant future. You can access this video at: https://digg.com/video/3-year-old-chess-prodigy-anatoly-karpov
Perhaps those who work with gifted children have the best opportunity to observe the unvarnished talent of our species in its earliest stages. Reporting on their research in a Scientific American article titled, Nurturing the Young Genius, (2012) researchers who work with gifted children explain:
For nearly a century scholars have sought to understand, measure and explain giftedness. To some, the term is a misnomer for the result of endless practice or social advantage. We believe, however, that extraordinary abilities do exist and do matter. Giftedness implies an ability to perform at the extreme upper end of the distribution in a certain area. Early on it is determined and largely defined by potential, followed by demonstrated achievement and, later, by eminence.
In the absence of detailed information about our brain’s interrelated functions, much of the discussion about high intelligence and giftedness is based on psychometrics. However, advances in brain imaging techniques are beginning to provide insights into individual differences in brain structure and neural processing speed.
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