ABSTRACT
Like much sport-related research, the theoretical understanding of the relationship between training and performance originates elsewhere. In the late 1800s, one of the earliest studies of this relationship was conducted at Indiana University by William Lowe Bryan and his graduate student Noble Harter, who examined the development of telegraph skill-a worthwhile outcome considering the time period. Their research and other research examining the accumulated effects of prolonged practice and the rate of learning typically show that performance increased according to a power function, whereby rapid skill improvements during initial hours of practice are reduced and learners are required to invest progressively more hours to accrue progressively smaller improvements. This finding, better known as the power law of practice (Figure 3.1), has been demonstrated in numerous domains-everything
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outside psychology also noticed this phenomenon but called it different names such as the law of diminished returns or ceiling effects.
