Got this in a forward today. While its interesting in its own way, was wondering if this is actually possible… in terms of learning in such a short span of time…
Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder. One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder. A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he’s not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he’s attacking the new monkey. One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.
“AND THAT’S HOW ANY COMPANY’S POLICIES GET ESTABLISHED”.
I’ve heard of this experiment, too. Not sure if it’s actually true, but let’s assume that it is. What does it prove? That monkeys are pretty smart, can learn pretty quickly, are highly social, and use social interaction to avoid an undesireably situation.
But they lack communication and so are stuck being unable to figure out a fairly simple problem.
True, but my wonderment was more along the lines of in any social setting (if this can be described as one) would something like this be possible, in terms of learning / experience being passed on in any structured manner with such precision. For eg., would not some monkeys in the final group try out any alternative path to the banana cache or something like that?
There’s an old, old story about a young newlywed cooking her first holiday dinner. As her husband watches, she slices off the end of the roast. “Why are you doing that?” he asks. “I don’t know why,” she answers, “but that’s how Mom always started.” So they call up her mother and ask “Why did you always cut the end off the roast before you cook it?” “I don’t know,” admits Mom. “But that’s what my mother taught me.” So they call up Grandma and ask her. “Cut the end off the roast?” the old lady answers, denying ever having done such a thing. The younger folks insist that’s what she did. “Oh!” she says. “Now I remember! The pan was too small.”
Lots of animals can learn things really quickly. Your smarter dogs and cats learn that you will do something unpleasant if they go places you don’t want them to go, for example. So they learn rather quickly to do those things when you’re not around! Fewer of them will pass them on to others, but many will. Mother cats trained not to scratch on furniture will often teach kittens not to do so. They all will teach kittens about the litter box. There have been “Discovery Channel” type documentaries about apes who teach the babies to “fish” for termites.
And yes, IMHO the new monkeys probably would try climbing the cage walls or some such thing. Or use the ladder as a tool to smack the fruit down instead of climbing.