Plateaus and Asymptotes

Abstract

One hundred twenty years ago, the emergent field of experimental psychology debated whether plateaus of performance during training were real or not. Sixty years ago, the battle was over whether learning asymptoted or not. Thirty years ago, the research community was seized with concerns over stable plateaus at suboptimal performance levels among experts. Applied researchers viewed this as a systems problem and referred to it as the paradox of the active user. Basic researchers diagnosed this as a training problem and embraced deliberate practice. The concepts of plateaus and asymptotes and the distinction between the two are important as the questions asked and the means of overcoming one or the other differ. These questions have meaning as we inquire about the nature of performance limits in skilled behavior and the distinction between brain capacity and brain efficiency. This article brings phenomena that are hiding in the open to the attention of the research community in the hope that delineating the distinction between plateaus and asymptotes will help clarify the distinction between real versus “spurious limits” and advance theoretical debates regarding learning and performance.

Deliberate Practice and Proposed Limits on the Effects of Practice on the Acquisition of Expert Performance: Why the Original Definition Matters and Recommendations for Future Research

“…Similarly, we reported evidence that some students can engage in solitary practice without improvements in performance (McPherson and Renwick, 2001), and that strategies for improving performance increase in complexity as the attained level of performance is higher (Hallam et al, 2012). There is also an increasing body of research showing that increases in performance as a function of further practice are often not monotonic and exhibit plateaus in the individuals’ performance (Gray, 2017), which are not unmodifiable and can be overcome by changes and coach-led practice (deliberate practice). More generally, the development of an individual’s performance will be influenced by the quality of acquired basic skills and mental representations.…”

Reinforcement learning enhances training and performance in skilled alpine skiers compared to traditional coaching instruction

“…To assess how the learning groups' knowledge of the strategies evolved and governed their choices we asked the skiers and coaches (excluding coaches involved in supervised (target skill) learning) to evaluate the strategies by ranking them from best (1) to worst (4). They first ranked the strategies upon their introduction (familiarization) to the strategies and then after each session.…”

“…Skilled performers rely on ingenious movement strategies to effectively achieve their goals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. In the diverse and erratic task situations that characterize sports, what the optimal strategy is often depends on the specific circumstances.…”

“…In those cases, athletes may need to try new strategies and learn their values to achieve further improvements. Unfortunately, many athletes are stuck on plateaus because they lack knowledge of better alternatives and rely on conventional teaching methods that focus on refining existing strategies [11][12][13][14][15]. Are there better training methods that can improve elite performance, by teaching athletes new strategies' values in more efficient ways than conventional teaching?…”

Learning curves for point-of-care ultrasound image acquisition for novice learners in a longitudinal curriculum

“…Plateaus on learning curves represent a “spurious limit [to learning],” where further improvement in performance becomes unlikely in the given context. Plateaus may be surpassed if additional educational interventions and assessments are applied [ 1 , 2 ].…”