[originaltext]Teachers and students alike have experienced the curious paradox

Teachers and students alike have experienced the curious paradox that beginners, as a rule, tend to think too little about what they are doing because they think too much about what they are doing. Take, for example, people who are learning to play basketball or the piano. They have to give so much thought and attention to the low-level mechanics of handling the ball or fingering the keys or reading the music, that they are unable to give any thought to the thing that matters—the game, or the music, respectively.
With experts, it’s just the other way around. They’re open to the tactical possibilities and the musical challenges precisely because they’re freed, through skill, from the need to pay attention to the low-level details of how to play. Indeed, when the expert pays attention to the mechanics, this is liable to disrupt performance. This has led some to say that the expert operates in a zone “beyond thought,” in a state of flow. But this is misleading. Expert performance is not beyond thought. Smart basketball players or skilled musicians need to pay close attention to the demands of high performance, to the challenges to be overcome. What they don’t need to do— what would be a distraction— is to have to think about where their fingers are, or how to control the ball while running. It’s not mechanics, but the play itself, that absorbs the expert’s intelligence.
A nice video published online last month sheds light on expertise and the conscious mind. The video reports a new study using an eye-tracking device. It turns out that the less-skilled pianist spends more time looking at her fingers than does the expert who, in contrast, is more likely to be looking at the sheet music, or looking ahead at keys he’s not yet playing. In general, the expert’s gaze was calmer and more stable.
This is not a surprising finding. It supports what we might almost think of as conventional wisdom. But it’s remarkable for all that, nonetheless. The eye tracker gives expert and learning performers a glimpse into what they do without thinking about it. The topic of the nature of skill— and the differences between beginners and experts— has been one of considerable discussion in cognitive science and philosophy.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.
16. What does the speaker say about beginners and expert pianists?
17. What do smart basketball players do according to the speaker?
18. What do we learn about the new study published in an online video?