Transcript: How We Learn

How We Learn Transcript

ALAN ALDA: But the Max Planck team also tested children and apes for their social skills.

RESEARCHER Let’s see, I’ll just put this one here, then I’ll just put this one… oh!

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The help the kids gave was entirely spontaneous.

ALAN ALDA Thank you. Danke schön. OK, All done.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The surprise was that chimps also volunteer when an object is out of reach.

FELIX WARNEKEN So this suggests that potential altruistic motivation to act on behalf of others is something that is shared among chimpanzees and humans and therefore something that maybe was already a characteristic of our common ancestor.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) But if the impulse to help has deep evolutionary roots, in humans it’s blossomed.

While helping in chimps was limited to reaching tasks, human children are eager to help with all sorts of troubles… and what’s more, they seem to enjoy it.

And it’s in this social realm that the kids who come into the Leipzig institute to play games with the experimenters outshine their ape cousins. Nowhere is this more true than in the way children learn.

Here’s an experiment I found especially eye-opening. Stefan’s just been shown how to use this toy, and he copies faithfully. Now look what happens when the polar bear puppet does it differently.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO That was exactly what we see, is the kid saying not only did you do it wrong, but here’s the right way to do it.

ALAN ALDA Yeah.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) This time Stefan is shown how to push a block in a complex procedure that involves assembling and using a tool.

He’s also told the wrong way to move the block.

STEFAN Ah!

ALAN ALDA He’s really into it.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO He’s into it, He’s definitely into it.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Now it’s the polar bear’s turn. Stefan tries to get the bear to do it right, and he tries to stop him from cheating.

This whole notion that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, and that children soak up what they’re shown, is a major theme of the Leipzig research. Here, Ingrid has to get the die out of the plastic tube.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO As soon as she sees how to do it it’s easy, but without seeing it she has no idea.

ALAN ALDA And they don’t tend to experiment first?

MICHAEL TOMASELLO They do some but mainly they are waiting and trusting to see how to do it.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) But not all experiments go exactly to plan. Again, the task is getting the die. This time Ingrid doesn’t wait to be shown.

ALAN ALDA What do we have here, an Einstein?

MICHAEL TOMASELLO Yeah, exactly. She figured it out without having a model.

ALAN ALDA She went right to that twisting thing.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO That was brilliant.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Now Ingrid is shown the “right” way to do it – the way grown-ups do it.

ALAN ALDA So it turns out that you can make Einstein do whatever you want. No matter how smart Einstein is.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO No matter how smart Einstein is, Einstein will be influenced by watching other people do it, especially if they are older and seemingly more skilled.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Now it’s the turn of the orangutans in the Leipzig zoo. All the experiments here, by the way, are done in full view of the public. Sophie is shown how to get the grape – in this case by the twisting method.

Accompanied by her baby, Sophie blithely ignores the demonstration, and uses her own method.

ALAN ALDA So she did it the other way.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO She did it the way she likes to do it. She didn’t really care about the way he did it.

ALAN ALDA I guess the question is, if the orang doesn’t copy the human, maybe it’s because they don’t care what humans do.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO That’s possible. And so in this study we’re going to actually have an orangutan demonstrator for the other orangutan. So at the moment this orangutan is being trained the way to operate it and she will operate it for the other orang and we’ll see if the second orang follows the demonstration of the first orang or if she does it her own way.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Sophie has been trained to get the peanut by pushing down on the white cylinder. Here comes the second orang, Ellie, who hasn’t done this task before but who gets to watch how Sophie does it.

ALAN ALDA So she saw it. My expectation would be that if you let her in there she’d do it the same way.

MICHAEL TOMASELLO We’ll see.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) But instead…

MICHAEL TOMASELLO So she pulls it out instead of pressing it down just because that’s her own individual problem solving strategy.

ALAN ALDA That’s her way of doing it.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Unlike the old adage, “monkey see, monkey do,” orangutans at least don’t seem to care what others do.