April 24, 2025
In their ‘Tree Shaker’ task, one participant reached for a tree containing fruits of varying value, while another participant then shook that tree to forage for its fruits. The researchers found that the faster a co-actor reached for a tree, the more it was foraged—both for longer and with greater effort—by participants.
This suggests that people can infer the value of items in the environment simply by observing how others act toward them. It highlights the role of action understanding in learning—not through trial and error or explicit communication, but through reading value from others’ goal-directed behavior.
Read paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027725000885?via%...