#social learning

In a groundbreaking discovery, bumblebees have been shown to possess a previously unseen level of cognitive sophistication. A new study, published in Nature, reveals that these fuzzy pollinators can learn complex, multi-step tasks through social interaction, even if they cannot figure them out on their own. This challenges the long-held belief that such advanced social learning is unique to humans, and even hints at the presence of key elements of cumulative culture in these insects. Led by Dr. Alice Bridges and Professor Lars Chittka , the research team designed a two-step puzzle box requiring bumblebees to perform two distinct actions in sequence to access a sweet reward at the end. Training bees to do this was no easy task, and bees had to be helped along by the addition of an extra reward along the way. This temporary reward was eventually taken away, and bees subsequently had to open the whole box before getting their treat.

Social Learning

Aristotle was the first to provide evidence of social learning in bird songs.

Charles Darwin was the first to suggest what became known as social learning in explaining the transmission of an adaptive behavior pattern seen in a population of honey bees.

Social learning - happens when behaviors are acquired through observation or are taught by other members of a social group (e.g., caregivers, siblings) or social institutions (e.g., schools, places of worship).

Social learning among humans is important because it means that we can avoid costly and time-consuming trial and error and at the same time multiply the power of individual learning (Boyd & Richardson, 2005).

Our collective brain power makes it possible for certain behaviors to become more adaptive and spread among groups.

Animal Culture

The actual phrase animal culture was first proposed by Japanese primatologists who discovered socially transmitted food behaviors on Koshima Island in the 1940s among Japanese monkeys.

The scientists observed a female monkey dunk a piece of potato in the ocean. Basically, she washed her food before she ate it and this innovation spread to a few other monkeys in the troop (the term for a group of monkeys).

Over time, the scientists observed gender (female) and age (younger) differences in the monkeys’ abilities to imitate and learn the behavior but potato washing persists on the island today, over 60 years later (Hirata, Watanabe, Kawa, 2001). 

Social learning and transmission has also been documented in whales, dolphins and chimpanzees, as well as other animals:

WHALE SONGS

Male humpback whales produce various songs over their lifetime, which are learned from other males in the population.

Males in a population conform to produce the same mating song, consisting of a highly stereotyped vocal display involved in mate attraction.

Researchers were able to record a series of songs and identified the cultural transmission of these songs across geographic distances (Western and Central South Pacific Ocean) over 11 years (Garland et al., 2013; Garland, Rendell, Lamoni, Poole and Noad, 2017).

DOLPHIN SPONGES

A community of bottlenose dolphins in Western Australia use conical sponges as tools to find food (foraging).

During “sponging,” dolphins break off a sponge and wear it over the rostrum (snout) while foraging on the seafloor (Smolker, et al., 1997; Mann et al., 2008).

Scientists think that the dolphins use the sponges for protection while foraging.

Researchers, using genetic analyses, found that all ‘spongers’ are descendants of a single matriline (mother to daughter) which suggests cultural transmission of the use of sponges, as tools, within a specific population (Mann and Sargeant, 2003).

CHIMPANZEE TOOLS

Chimpanzees also use tools for foraging but different types of tools are associated with specific populations.

This means that not all chimpanzees make or use the same tools for the same purpose.

For example, one troop of chimpanzees plunges sticks into termite nests to gather food and another troupe uses bark or leaves as a kind of scoop to forage for termites.

There is a documented instance of chimpanzees in the Democratic Republic of Congo creating a tool that is like a paint brush or bottle washer that results in more successful foraging.

The Remarkable Foraging Techniques of Chimpanzees It’s fascinating to observe the lengths to which chimpanzees will go to secure a tasty snack. In the lush rainforests of the Congo, these intelligent apes have been observed engaging in complex foraging behaviors. They skillfully poke holes into the ground using a sturdy stick and then select a long, flexible stem. With remarkable dexterity, they…

That is exactly autism.  Autism is, at it’s heart, a lack of understanding of social interactions.  Allistics automatically learn the social rules, without trying (this is called “implicit” learning).  They just magically know them.  As autistics, we did not get the social rules manual.  And so we have to build one.  From scratch.  By explicitly learning (that means by learning on purpose, it is the opposite of “implicit” learning).  

Basically, when an allistic little kid observes grown ups who greet each other, they watch them say “Hi, how are you.” And their brain learns from that observation the lesson “When people meet for the first time, they say “Hi, how are you.””  And then they copy the adults on their own.

Autistics do not “pick it up” on our own.  We need to be taught, by someone saying to us “When two people meet for the first time, they say “Hi, how are you.””  And then we need to practice the skill, using it many times before we become good at it.

Because we cannot “pick up” the rules on our own, and need them explained to us, we tend to gravitate towards the rules that are explained.  When rules are explained we’re relieved, we finally know what’s going on!  Then you learn that only some of the rules are actually spelled out, and most of them are “unwritten”, and you try to figure them out on your own, and you’re constantly, constantly checking the rules you do know and making sure you follow them exactly, because you’re aware that there are always rules you don’t know, which you will break by mistake. 

And so by following the rules that you do know to the letter, you’re reducing the number of mistakes you make by as much as you can, so that when you run into an invisible rule and break it, it’s the first rule you broke that day, and you hope people will be more forgiving.

Discord es de esas redes que recurrentemente aparece en mi vida. La primera vez que escuché hablar de ella fue en 2017 a principio de curso cuando, preguntando a mis estudiantes por qué red social les gustaría que utilizase para el día a día de la asignatura, bastante me hablaron de ellas como buena opción. Finalmente opté por Telegram y bueno no me ha dado malos resultados. La segunda fue hace poco que, en mi grupo de música, uno de mis compañeros lo propuso como espacio de comunicación alternativo a Facebook y fue ahí cuando empecé a empaparme más de ella y a verle la utilidad.

After season 15 episode 18, there was hope, love, sacrifice and a reinforcement of the ideas of inclusivity and family. Ironically, the episode titled “Despair” gave us hope. The show has always stood for family, love, hope and free will and disappointingly they took their own narrative and threw it out of the window into literal hell.

Just to clarify my stance, the actors did a terrific job and I couldn’t be more proud of Jared, Jensen, Misha and Alex and literally every other actor who has been a part of the show since season 1. You gave us everything and we love you for that. Additionally, we also sympathize with the fact that you unknowingly became a part of a show which after the finale represents nothing but homophobia, racism, sexism, ableism and everything the show claimed to be against.

So with this, I need to say some things.

Media is an amazingly powerful medium of storytelling, whether it be fictional or non-fictional. However, the fictional stories enjoy a kind of liberty that non-fictional stories do not and somehow still equally create an impact on their viewers. Media like movies, television shows and novels and books have a huge impact on their audience from a psychological and a sociological perspective. I will focus on the ‘Social Learning’ perspective to emphasize my point. Social learning, or rather any learning takes place in four stages in any human being; attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. This means that in order for something to become a part of an individual’s behaviour, they usually go through all these four stages. Let’s take an example. A teenaged girl is watching a high school centric movie where the lead character who is loved by everyone wears ripped jeans. She pays attention to that detail, retains it and tries to reproduce that aspect by wearing ripped jeans herself to be liked. If this behaviour of hers is liked and appreciated by her peers, the behaviour gets reinforced and the chances of the behaviour being repeated increasing.

Consequently, if the teenaged girl sees many loved lead characters from different movies and television shows wearing ripped jeans, her reaction to finally seeing someone wearing ripped jeans in real life would most likely be positive and appreciative. This is the power of media. It can make and break perceptions and plays a huge role in the behaviour portrayed in the society.

People might come at me saying that media is technically the mirror of the society and tends to represent the society the way it is, but I am not talking about realism or non-fictional stories, I am specifically talking about fictional storytelling and will later delve into the narrative created by the longest-running sci-fi television show ‘Supernatural’. Television shows like Supernatural, The Boys, Flash and Arrow don’t represent reality in its pure form but take the fantastical approach towards reality. This basically means that they can show the nature of the world and humans their stand while tweaking reality the way they want. You can have superhumans who are power-hungry and apathetic to represent the modern-day corporate organisations or you can show two brother fighting for God to show how much humans value love, hope and free will. These grand narratives which the shows stand for remains the same and are realistic and relatable despite the obviously fictional storyline. This is what truly makes a good fictional story.

However, this also means that they get the liberty to play with the characters as much as they want. They can literally show men in drag and women in commanding positions, masculine men (or whatever that even means) as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people of colour at leads and differently-abled people as not objects of pity but rather people who represent strength and hope. This is necessary and it is not wrong for people to ask for representation because this is what will change people’s perception and yes, the onus of this falls on the showrunners and the writers who are creating this fictional world.

The fact that even after fifteen seasons, it was physically impossible for the writers and the showrunners of Supernatural to give us this representation disgusts me. They were able to show an ending where apparently it represented hope, love and family for the two white, male, heterosexual leads on the expense of the sacrifice made my queer, female, differently-abled and Asian characters. Supernatural basically said, “There is hope for the white, straight men and the rest of you can go to hell".

In addition to this, they baited us with the return of our last queer representation by putting Castiel on every promo picture in order to increase the number of views, which they got. They tainted Castiel’s love confession by refusing to acknowledge his love and sacrifice in the subsequent episodes. I refused to believe that the confession scene was homophobic or adhered to the trope of “Bury your Gays” before knowing what happens in the finale, but Supernatural pulled a one over the trope and gave us worse than that. They not only refused to show Dean’s reaction to a love confession but also refused to acknowledge everything that Castiel had done because of course, a queer character doesn’t deserve screen time and appreciation.

Sadly, there is an addition to the above mentioned problematic aspects to this show. Since season 8 specifically, the show has been baiting us with bisexual Dean Winchester. Now, if Dean were an actual, real human being, what I’m about to say would be highly unethical. However, he is not a real person. Dean is a fictional character who represents strength, love, hope, free-will and selflessness who could still represent all of these things while being queer. The writers and the showrunners baited us with Dean’s bisexuality time and time again through background colours, subtext and his scenes with Castiel. But of course, how could a white, male warrior like Dean Winchester be bisexual? How can they break the heteronormative box created for the him which depends on the possibility of him having sex with only women, because that is the reason why Dean represents strength, love, hope, free-will and selflessness. Homophobia runs so deep within this show that Dean wasn’t allowed to reply to Castiel or even acknowledge his presence. He wasn’t allowed a goodbye to the character who literally died countless times to save him. Dean never mentioned how Cas died, not even to his brother because a queer person doesn’t deserve attention. They don’t deserve appreciation and respect. Castiel, after his “homosexual declaration of love” literally went to the Empty, which is canonically a place “worse than hell”.

Enough about the queers already right? Let’s talk about the one differently-abled representation on the show. Technically Eileen should’ve been back, she should’ve been alive. If she is alive, knowing the history between her and Sam, it would make sense if Sam ultimately ended up having a family with her. Then why wasn’t she mentioned? Why did Sam marry some unknown white, petite, able-bodied woman? This argument in keeping in mind that even if they couldn’t have brought the actress to act due to COVID-19, they could’ve still mentioned her if they wanted to (thing to note here: If they wanted to). However, how could an abled bodied warrior like Sam Winchester end up having a family with a differently-abled woman? Blasphemy.

The show managed to kill the gays, women, member of the black/Asian community, differently-abled people and everyone who did not fit into their white, male, heterosexual narrative and this is problematic. This is problematic because this is (was) a fictional show and they could’ve shown all this and still followed the storyline they wished to, but they purposely decided to not do that.

So yeah, fuck you Andrew Dabb, Robert Singer, Eric Kripe and anyone who had the power to change this narrative because you failed your audience, you failed your society and most importantly, you failed your own story.