So why did in the past researchers conclude that humans are bad at randomness?

Another great question.

Okay, so this has been a little bit of a puzzle.

And frankly, to me as a researcher, it always struck me as a little bit odd.

There is, in fact, decades of research, decades of research across lots of fields that show that people are bad randomizers.

So here's a very typical example of how I might test you on your randomization ability.

I bring you into the room and I say, okay, I need you to come up with a series of 10 digits and then just try to make them random.

Coming to your study, I'm wondering where the strategic interactions, for example, the battleships or something, Were they just becoming more random because the game or the experiment forced them to do that because they understood it? Or do you think they were truly adapting their behavior strategically because they understood there's something in it for them to win?

I

think very rarely are you saying, first of all, adults manufacture toys or adult manufactured forms of entertainment.

That's often seen as children's work.

And I just actually want to clarify because I think this is interesting.

You know, if you think of a toy, the definition is something that a child plays with.

And then you really run into this issue of like, well, what is playing with something, right? So if a Shuar child makes their broom out of natural items and actually uses it, are they playing or are they working? Well, they're kind of doing both.

And they're usually doing it with their friends.

Or often you have cases where both parents

And what do you see? I mean, how do children in, in, in a culture like the Shuar differ from kids you might meet in, you're at Duke, I mean, right? The kids in North Carolina.

Yeah.

So s- I would say some big differences and some surprising similarities.

So one of the things to note, um, is that in a lot of these, uh, foraging-based societies, communities are smaller.

So you have, you know, a, a number of households, um, that all kind of know each other.

Um, sometimes they're kin, sometimes they're non-kin.

Um, but what you also have is a community of children kind of within the larger community of, uh, uh, of members.

[laughs]