Learning and cognition
This has been my favorite chapter so far. I very much enjoyed when I took learning and motivation, and this chapter discussed learning in animals and the adaptive reasons for it. I thought the piece on the evolution of learning was particularly interesting. I really liked how the book used the examples of two drastically different environments to make their point about adaptive reasons for how learning evolved. In the first world everything was fixed and unchanging. In the second world everything was dynamic. Neither world could benefit from learning because in the first world you would never need to since everything stayed exactly the same so the animals best suited would dominate and be perfect for their environment already. In the second world everything changes so much you'd never get a chance to use what you learned because it might never be the same again. At least, that's how I understood it.
My other favorite piece was the applying the concepts box that talked about dog training. It shows how anthropomorphism can hinder more than just research. She talked about how many owners yell ineffective commands that their dogs cannot understand. She explained how to train the dogs properly and gave an example of a better method of communicating with your pets.
My other favorite piece was the applying the concepts box that talked about dog training. It shows how anthropomorphism can hinder more than just research. She talked about how many owners yell ineffective commands that their dogs cannot understand. She explained how to train the dogs properly and gave an example of a better method of communicating with your pets.
I also thought the part on learning in different environments was really interesting. It was really counter-intuitive to me at first that the second environment didn't require animals to learn, but after reading more closely it started to make sense. I didn't read the applying concepts box when I read the chapter, but after reading it now and I think it is incredibly cool how effective the training was on the dogs.
ReplyDeleteThis is also my favorite chapter. Learning and motivation class was very enjoyable for me! Particularly, the dog training portion was interesting to me as well. Until this class, I never knew what anthropomorphism was pr considered how much we as humans actually do this. It certainly is helpful o acknowledge when trying to seriously train a dog, as opposed to yelling and demanding things that they don't actually understand
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