ABSTRACT

There is no magic - to become expert simply means to become (by all means available) increasingly pragmatic in solving domain-speciflc problems. The process of problem solving implies a "negotiation" between the constraints of the domain and the cognitive resources of the subject. The cognitive pragmatism ofexperts is reflectedby their enhanced problem-solving eficiency, which must be understanded through two dimensions/perspectives: the quantity and quality of the products (an expert wants to obtain as much profit as it is posibil), and optimal exploitation ofthe cognitive resources (he needs tofind afine balance between what is necesarry and what is suficient to do in order to solve the problem). The aim of this paper is to "translate" the existing experimental data in terms ofthe cognitive pragmatism searching for 1) common quality of experts from different domains, and specific features of experts in a certain domain, and 2) relevant expert-novice differences. What is deflned as cognitive pragmatism at macrolevel, can/may be described - at microlevel - by a condesed, yet flexible form of knowledge organization, by complex, yet "easy to use" mnezical structures, by rapid and successful, and still not supranatural cognitive and metacognitive strategies.

KEYWORDS: expertise, pragmatism in problem solving, management of Information, knowledge base.