December 14, 2005

Chimps are smarter than preschoolers. When given unessesary steps to a puzzle, chimps figure out to do away with them. Children to not.
posted by Weezel 18 years ago
  • Oh, New York Times registration required. Sorry I forgot to mention that.
  • A chimp would have figured that out.
  • Well now i may just be having a bad hair day or .... Child one in supermarket throws complete tantrum - mother selects and shoves chocolate in mouth to keep peace - child two observes and imitates tantrum - mother two abuses me because child two flings self to floor unexpectedly in front of speeding supermarket trolley (i hate shopping!) Imitative yes hey how about mum could i have a chocolate because i have been good huh? aaaaaaaaaaaaagh Or alternatively as seems the current fad take item off shelves - feed to child and present empty wrapper (if you feel like it) at the checkout. Sorry sore nerve this evening
  • Actually the law of the jungle and beating the chimps to the banana section this afternoon would have been a cakewalk!
  • Humans have a much longer development/learning phase than most other animals. This allows us to learn more over the course of our lives. In any case it's pretty hard to seperate learned social behavior from this experiment. The children are likely trying to please the researchers by doing it exactly as shown.
  • oops forgot pavlovian response
  • .
  • I think he just picked a lot of really dumb kids. Just kidding. Actually, that's very fascinating. It says a lot about how kids might pick up our stupid and bad habits, too, even if they don't make sense.
  • Even monkey know this!
  • And the kids were just worried if they didn't tap the magic box with the stick, it might eat them.
  • a slime mold would be better at math than I but I challenge any chimp to a spelling bee...any time!!