insight learning


in·sight learn·ing

the grasp of the solution to a problem without the intervening series of the trial and error steps that are associated with most types of learning (for example, a monkey housed behind the bars of a cage who, without proceeding through countless hours of futile attempts with one stick or the other, fits two sticks together to retrieve a banana outside the distance measured by either stick alone).

insight learning

the production of a new and adaptive response as a result of'insight’. For example, presented with a bunch of bananas that is too high to reach, chimpanzees will pile up boxes, or fit two sticks together in order to get them.