Social Learning?

Let me begin by explaining that I am by no means stupid. In fact, I'd like to think I'm pretty intelligent and can make useful assumptions about human beings (especially after having graduated with a degree in Psychology) as a result. However, when reading Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Ettiene Wenger, I quickly realized that I had missed out on making a key assumption about the way we learn.

Wenger shares with the reader that she has four assumptions of learning (Wenger, p. 4)

1. We are social beings. Being socially engaged is therefore a central aspect of learning.
2. Knowledge involves both competency as well as "valued enterprise".
3. To know means to participate in the pursuit of what is valued/worldly experience.
4. Learning produces meaning of that experience.

I always thought that learning entailed simply coming into contact with new knowledge, and then understanding it/being able to recall it later. Perhaps I simplified it a little too much. Ok I did.

What Wenger spoke about with regards to us learning as social beings rings very true to me. I can now think back to going to school my entire life. I learned in a class full of students, and yet we rarely were allowed to talk to each other and group work- especially in the younger days- was very frowned upon. Sure, we had the odd group presentation that we had to do, but let's be honest- there was always one person pulling more of the weight than anyone else. That person was usually me. I didn't do poorly in school as a result of the lack of social learning within the classroom, but I certainly had to overcome difficulties. Having the teacher guide me during seemingly-complex equations in math class was very helpful, but as soon as I didn't have her guiding hand, I felt lost and incompetent. 

I can think of other times where learning wasn't at all an issue, such as when I went on a student exchange to France when I was 16. There I had to learn about all the french sayings and expressions, new table manners, proper greetings, and numerous other cultural practices that were very different than those I had grown up doing. In retrospect, I picked up this new information and put it to use fairly easily as a result of being immersed in the French world. I wasn't reading about these things, I wasn't regurgitating information that I had studied for hours trying to remember; I was involved and this produced a lot of meaning for me.

Humans aren't the only species that learn best socially. Many other animals are too, such as chimps and parrots. In this video, two chimps were separately taught processes necessary to get food from a human-made contraption. When reintroduced with their chimpanzee companions, the other chimps learned- through modeling- the same processes that had been intentionally taught to the others previously. 

I also remember learning about researchers who were trying to teach the different shapes and colours to an African Grey Parrot (known to be the smartest of the parrots). In the beginning, they used a basic food-reward system to try and teach the parrot, but quickly realized that the process was becoming long and unsuccessful. They then decided to use a different method, which involved having the researchers teach each other the shapes and colours while being rewarded with food that the parrot would want in the presence of the subject animal. In no time the parrot picked up the knowledge and learned how to distinguish these different shapes and colours without having been intentionally taught, suggesting that its learning was social in nature and very successful. 

Clearly, humans have evolved to be able to have much more complex teaching methods. Knowing that there are so many different ways to pass knowledge down to new learners, it is important to incorporate those new methods to make the learning process as effective (while being violence-free!) as possible.

Language: What sets human animals apart from the rest

Growing up I always loved animals. They created a sense of acceptance regardless of where I was; it felt comforting knowing I always had a friend. In highschool I was required to do 40 hours of community service in order to graduate, and I eagerly applied for an unpaid job working at an animal hospital. There I was able to explore the emotional lives of animals who were encountering biological setbacks, which connected me even more to all these different species. Finally, during my undergraduate degree in University, I was able to take a course titled "Animal Rights: Intelligence and Consciousness", which further seemed to prove that these animals had incredible cognitive abilities. Perhaps, I thought, humans shouldn't be put on a pedestal. Maybe we're not so different.

Other animals share some capacities.. but language may really set us apart (http://pulse2.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/humans-vs-animals.jpg)

Ever since then I've fully believed that the similarities between humans and non-human animals are greater than the differences that exist. That is, until now.

In my "Lifelong Learning Processes" class, we recently discussed the ways in which humans engage in culture compared to the cultural engagements of other animals- notably chimps and bonobos. We concluded (with the help of Michael Tomasello's book: http://www.amazon.ca/Cultural-Origins-Human-Cognition/dp/0674005821) that humans engage in a more intentional passing-down of culture, while other animals seem to be using imitation to learn. In other words, when children are learning how to use the washroom on their own, their efforts are being actively rewarded in an attempt to help them learn more effectively. By contrast, other animals- let's take a dog for example- might watch another dog pee on a fire-hydrant and copy them. The dogs aren't being told what the right thing to do is, making their learning much more unintentional than the learning of humans.

Tomasello talks about the value of language for the human species. With language we are able to record the knowledge we already have about virtually everything known to this world, so when a new individual is born, they can build upon that knowledge without having to learn it for themselves. Once again, this differentiates us from chimps who, without language, are unable to engage in complex learning behaviours.

With my group in class we discussed how communication might occur through body language, something we had all observed in other animals. Perhaps that might replace, to some extent, language? Well, that thought didn't go far. Dr. Plumb explained that our language is able to tell a much more detailed and elaborated story than body language can, allowing more dynamic relations to occur between humans (Tomasello, 1999). He was right. Using language, we are able to speak about things that aren't in our line of sight, giving us a unique shared sense of time and the world. Wow, eh? I had never really thought about the incredible and existential things we're able to discuss as a species via language. What an amazing feat.

Although my mind had been undoubtedly been blown thinking about the realizations we've accomplished through language, it also reminded me of how we may fall short of what can be realized using the same tool. Why haven't we used language more to discuss political differences rather than engage in war? Why have we been using our seemingly superior cognitive capacities to build weapons of destruction, rather than creating the ability to live happily and peacefully together?

Perhaps without the realization of our potential as a species, we simply fall short.

The Uncanny Valley

Graph of the Uncanny Valley

The idea of the "uncanny valley"(http://www.cbc.ca/day6/blog/2011/12/09/tintin-too-human-or-not-human-enough/) although mostly related to robots and 3D animation, reminded me about when I first decided I wanted to stop eating meat. I grew up having whatever pet my parents would let me keep. At the same time, I enjoyed delicious turkey dinners, crispy bacon breakfasts, and- my favourite- lobster. When I was 17, I spent some time as an exchange student in France, and I found myself having frog legs for dinner on night. My first thought was how stereotypical the meal was. A close second, however, was how odd I felt eating an animal I once owned. This ultimately lead me to think about why people choose to eat one animal over the other. I never quite found an answer until now: perhaps it's about how similar the animals are to us.

Take dogs for example. They seem to smile when their happy, and let us know when they're not. The thought of eating a dog makes us feel uneasy because they share human-like emotions. We are all too aware of the fact that they, like us, are sentient beings. Cows, though, are much more difficult to figure out. They don't seem to make many facial expressions, which probably prevents us from getting too emotionally attached, especially if we aren't the farmers who work with them every day.They are so dissimilar to humans that it doesn't pull at our heart strings at the thought of having one for lunch, dinner, and hey- maybe some new boots!

Learning about this uncanny valley also got me thinking about the video games that are currently out there. Usually when there are guns involved, the people who die are zombies, nazis, or aliens- all of are similar to human in some ways, but very different in others, which makes them part of that "uncanny valley", and therefore very easy to kill. They simply repulse us because we simply can't empathize with them. Even when you are playing against real people around the world (on x-box live, for example), the people are represented as monsters, machines, or aliens, also allowing for the killing of them to be free of any guilt.

Trying to understand why we experience certain emotions has always been a fascination of mine (and being a psychology major, perhaps that doesn't come as a big surprise). One of the best things about being human is, in my opinion, our ability to wonder and to inquire about these types of things. According to Tomasello (http://www.amazon.ca/Cultural-Origins-Human-Cognition/dp/0674005821), we are the only animal that seem to have the ability to do so at this degree. We can truly empathize with others- truly grasping our sense of self and enabling us to step into each others shoes and make decisions that are not only based on our own well-being, but the well-being of others. Ah, altruism (selflessness).

Talking about the differences between humans and other animals really sparks my desire to learn more. I guess that is another distinguishing trait of our species, and though I'd love to spend a day as dolphin or a bird, I wouldn't trade this passion for knowledge for anything in the world.

Altruistic behaviour in non-human primates? I wonder..