I really enjoyed a LiveScience report on Toddler thinking. It tries to demonstrate a new understanding of how we rationalize and reason when we are very young:

“I went into this study expecting a completely different set of findings,” said psychology professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they’re just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different.”

That sets me up for a big difference. I am ready. Show me the difference!

The pupil measurements showed that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.

“For example, let’s say it’s cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside,” Chatham explained. “You might expect the child to plan for the future, think ‘OK it’s cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm.’ But what we suggest is that this isn’t what goes on in a 3-year-old’s brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it.”

Ok, I see what they mean in the case of a jacket and cold, but when you’re talking about the vast spectrum of risks, I see no difference. How many times does a security director have to say to a company executive “go get your firewall and IDS, patch vulnerabilities, enable malware detection and get ready to put your systems on the Internet”. Yet most adults seem to want to connect to the Internet first, discover that their systems are hacked, retrieve the memory of where their security director is, and then they go ask for controls. In other words, humans appear not to perceive clearly until they experience certain incidents. After a series, they then can develop more predictive habits.

Munakata figures the results might help with real situations.

“If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective,” Munakata said. “What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don’t do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like ‘I know you don’t want to take your coat now, but when you’re standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom.”

How does this sound? “I know you do not want to run your business with security controls, but when you’re cleaning up an incident later, remember that you can get protection from your vendors and staff.”

We are not talking about toddlers when it comes to adults with technology, and yet the problems with preparations described in the story seem very similar.

The study appears to confirm that humans need to experience things themselves to learn them most effectively. No? Did I miss something. While toddlers may not yet understand “cold”, adults often do not understand “hack” for the same reasons.