The brain’s building blocks: Why your mind adapts better than AI
A pair of monkeys staring at colored shapes in a Princeton lab may have brought you closer to understanding how your own mind works. A new study shows that the brain solves hard problems by reusing simple mental parts across many tasks, much like snapping together pieces of a toy set. The work helps explain why you can move from cooking dinner to learning new software without starting from zero each time. Scientists have long puzzled over how the brain links small actions into more complex behavior. You learn when fruit is ripe, then apply that skill while shopping, cooking and choosing meals. Your brain does not rebuild each skill every time. It reuses what it already knows and mixes those skills in fresh ways. In the study, Princeton University researchers trained two male rhesus macaques to handle three related visual games. Each trial showed a squidgy image that changed in color and form. The animal had to judge either the shape or the color, then signal the answer with a fast eye move to …
