Even if we know the best strategy to face a task, we tend to Try new ways to see if they lead us to a different and better result: this is what emerges from a study conducted by MIT and published on Current Biologywho tested the behavior of humans and uistitì, small primates widespread in southern America.
This behavior apparently illogical It would actually be functional to the discovery of new ones Best strategiessince there may be a more effective way better than we already know to complete a task. “It’s like with food,” explains Mriganka Sur, one of the authors: “We all have dishes that we like, but we continue to try new ones because – you never know – we could find someone we like even more”.
Innerized scheme. The tests provided that Three humans and two people They observed for a more or less short time frame an image on the screen, and that they premised a button when the image disappeared. The more the button was pressed quickly by the disappearance of the image, the greater the success achieved in the task.
Both humans and primates (the latter in a little more time) learned that the more the image remained on the screen, the more likely it was that they should press the button shortly. After a little exercise, following this scheme, their reactions had speeded up.
What if something changes? As the experiment continued, however, the authors started noticing something unexpected. The results of the previous test influenced the behavior of humans and animals in the next test, sometimes leading to worsen the performance: if in the test just ended the image had remained on the screen for a short time, the participants decreased the reaction time (probably expecting a lower duration once again); If, on the contrary, in the previous test the image had remained on the screen for a long time, they increased their reaction time (probably providing that they had to wait more).
“The fact that the behavior continues to change even after learning the task could indicate that exploration is a useful strategy to establish an optimal internal model of the environment”, concludes scholars. In other words, Continue to explore even after learning something can lead to a deeper understanding and a better adaptation to future situations.
