The Biocultural Basis of Stupidity

The interference of learning with adaptation through further learning is not a uniquely human problem. It is found, for example, among earth worms, which can be trained to turn away from an “Electrode alley†in a T-box-an experimental construct in which the animal reaches a choice-point and must go to one side or the other. Having learned to avoid the side with the electrode, a worm will at first have difficulty learning to turn the other way when the electrode is switched to the previously “Correct†side [1]. In this case, what the animal had learned clearly interfered with its ability to adjust to altered environmental conditions, as it had to overcome the original lesson before it could form a new, effective schema.