When I throw a stick, my dog starts moving before the stick even leaves my hand. How is that possible ? Does my dog know the future ? Of course, beyond the joke and the clickbaity title, this should not seem like magic. We usually admit that animals can anticipate by predicting the future, at least in some weak sense. I suppose we think of it like this: my dog has observed me throwing toys for years, so he has a mental model of where the toy will go depending on my movements. When I start moving, his brain uses the present information, puts it in the model, makes a few computations, predicts the trajectory of the stick, and starts moving according to this prediction. And sure, this is far from being Nostradamus. I can profit from this behaviour to easily fool my dog. I simply don’t release the stick, and my dog starts moving to the wrong place.
Category: Case studies
Case studies
You probably know the game called “the floor is lava”, where players must traverse space without touching the ground. Although it is a kids’ game, it is also popular among parkour practitioners, who use different obstacles, ledges, walls or rails to avoid touching the “lava”. Here, I will argue that this game is a great example of a “naive” version of the constraints-led approach. Different versions of the game might exist, so we will start discussing an unstructured case and then examine how different variations can be used to achieve learning goals.