Animal models of expertise development

There is a continuing debate in the psychological literature between those who lean more towards learning theories of expertise development and those leaning more towards talent theories. However, the development of human expertise has not been open to direct experimental methods and will probably continue to elude experimentalists in the future. A promising alternative is to employ non-human animal models. Expertise researchers have seemingly overlooked this possibility. However, there are studies in the animal behavior literature that address the development of non-human animal expertise without specifically referring to the topic as expertise. I will discuss two non-human animal examples of expertise development that have been researched by ethologists. Non-human animal expertise development, unlike human expertise development, is subject to direct experimentation. Hence, I recommend initiating expertise research with non-human animals.