19552 GW Mag 26_Final_singles - Flipbook - Page 33
From toddlers to terriers, cognitive scientist Francys
Subiaul and his students explore the science of social
learning to reveal how animals acquire knowledge—
and what makes humans so good at it.
AT THE NATIONAL CHILDREN’S MUSEUM IN WASHINGTON,
D.C., 5-year-old Anaya grinned as she tapped through a tablet
game, stacked cubes and repeated silly phrases that sent
Columbian College of Arts & Sciences’ student researchers
into cheers.
On the GW campus, at the GW Canine Cognition
Collaborative in the basement of the Hortense Amsterdam
House, Walter—a 9-year-old terrier-Corgi mix with a nose
for treats—paced in front of upside-down yellow cups while
a PhD student directed him toward his hidden reward.
Across G Street, in a Hall of Government classroom,
students watched monkeys on screen—videos of bonobos
in an Iowa conservation sanctuary playing a version of
Simon Says on a touchscreen.
These are the research worlds of Francys Subiaul, an
associate professor in the CCAS Departments of Speech,
Language and Hearing Sciences and Anthropology.
Each scene—a child playing with blocks, a dog hunting
snacks, an ape at a computer—is a learning laboratory. And
for Subiaul, each offers clues to a riddle that has become his
life’s work: What are the secrets of social learning—the ways
humans and animals acquire knowledge by observing others?
And what makes us so good at it?
“In a general sense, all animals are social learners,”
Subiaul said. “But humans are truly exceptional—if not
downright weird!”
Subiaul is a cognitive scientist—an interdisciplinary field
that investigates intelligence and how the mind and brain
work. His research on social learning also leaps forward into
the more complex realm of cultural learning—a rare step
taken by only a few species.
Social learning is influenced by watching others, Subiaul
explained. It’s a broad category, encompassing everything
from imitation to learning from others’ mistakes. Think of a
school child stopping himself from speaking out of turn after
seeing the teacher correct a classmate.
Cultural learning is a sophisticated form of social learning
in which information is passed across communities over
generations. That might mean children adapting to norms
like shaking hands in one culture and bowing in another. In
chimpanzee troops, the same concept may play out when
some apes learn to use sticks to fish for termites in trees
while others probe for honey in beehives.
“Knowledge increases exponentially when we not only
get information from others, but combine and generalize
that information,” Subiaul noted. Indeed, Subiaul said that
is the key to our cognitive success. “We’re not so great at
creating new ideas—we’re much better at recycling them.”
Evolution, Animated
Subiaul’s scientific curiosity was sparked early—not from
a textbook but from a Disney cartoon. After moving from Cuba
to Miami at age 7, he remembers being captivated by the
movie Fantasia. Rather than Mickey Mouse’s beloved
“Sorcerer’s Apprentice” scene, a lesser-known dinosaur
sequence grabbed his attention. “Most people don’t even
remember the dinosaur scene,” he laughed. When he asked
his mother, she described a prehistoric world filled with
strange creatures. “I was fascinated by that,” he said.
A high school psychology class introduced him to
the evolution of the mind, and in college he discovered
anthropology. “I had no idea that there was a whole
discipline that studied human evolution,” Subiaul said.
Subiaul’s research spans disciplines—like psychology,
linguistics and cognitive science—as well as species. At its
GW Arts & Sciences | RESEARCH & LEARNING | 33
