The Seattle Times – John Higgins
“A few years ago, I interviewed Laura Schulz, a cognitive scientist at MIT, about a fascinating study she had c0-authored showing the difference between teaching preschoolers how a toy worked and letting them monkey around with it themselves. The toy was specially made for the experiment out of colored PVC pipes attached to a board and had several features that weren’t obvious. For example, if kids pulled a yellow tube out of a bigger purple tube, the toy squeaked. One end of a blue tube lit up when kids pushed a small button inside the other end. A yellow pad played musical notes if kids pressed it. Or they could see their own faces reflected if they looked into a black tube. Kids who were explicitly taught how the squeaker worked, but nothing else about the toy, spent less time exploring and discovered fewer of the toy’s other functions than kids who weren’t taught.”(more)