Learning

The following video shows an experiment from the University of Texas in which an adult teaches children and chimpanzees how to open a puzzle box and retrieve food from inside. The catch is the teacher includes superfluous steps into how they teach. In the experiment, the chimpanzees are often better than the children at solving the puzzle box without also imitating the superfluous steps.



If you are inclined to explain why this happened according to some idea of mirror neurons, social learning theory, etc, ask yourself: Why do you think that solves the question of why the children incorporate unnecessary steps into their learning, while the chimps are able to figure out that they are superfluous? Do you think your own learning about how you would explain this has unecessary steps incorporated which might have produced an erroneous conclusion?

Many stories for cinema and fiction prominently feature characters who come to learn something they had formerly been unable to comprehend. Learning about learning can help writers to develop characters, stories and plots while also thinking about what people may be learning about those characters, stories and plots as they experience them.