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Cooking the family dinner is more complex. Even with a smart oven, within that roast
lies a mysterious set of possibilities, as with the side dishes that go with it. A cook must
consider spices, textures, heat sources and methods, and timing. A kitchen full of handy
utensils complicates the task even more. The whole thing would seem worthy of a profes-
sional with advanced degrees, yet many amateurs do a fine job on this every night. For
them it's simply part of a routine.
A successful routine can smooth over complex actions. Learning the actions in their
proper order might require some effort, but if the reward is clear, we do what's necessary.
Once we've integrated the separate actions into a complete routine, complexity seems
simple. We do the routine the same way every time. We don't have to think. When M.I.T.
neuroscientist Ann Graybiel monitored brain activity in rats navigating a maze, she wasn't
surprised when their initial efforts were slow. The newcomers stopped, sniffed, probed and
took their time—yet their brains were working like mad, processing every twist and turn.
What was more intriguing was how their brains reacted, as the maze became a routine. As
the rats learned the route, they sped up until they could run it at a breakneck pace, but their
brain activity plummeted. As their proficiency increased they could do more, think less,
and maybe approach a rodent's version of the runner's high. Tying shoes seems simple,
running a maze can be convoluted, and cooking dinner seems downright intricate. All three
involve sequences of action.
In his February 2012
New York Times
article, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets,”
Charles Duhigg writes: “This process, in which the brain converts a sequence of actions in-
to an automatic routine, is called 'chunking'.” When learning a new task we often express
this concept another way: taking one thing at a time. The child does it by initially learning
which shoe goes on which foot—the laces come later. The cook has learned it in thousands
of little lessons over a lifetime. He might start by looking in the refrigerator, or going to the
supermarket—programming the smart oven comes later. When entering the maze, the rat
figures it out with all that sniffing and probing. As they transform learning into routine, all
three stop thinking and just do it.
Before a user acts, he or she must decide to act, so sequences of actions often require
multiple decisions. The child might have several pairs of shoes, so she decides which pair.
Once the shoes are on her feet, she decides how snug to pull the laces. If she's gained some
skill at this shoe-tying business, she might know a couple of different knots. Which one
will she use this time? The cook's dinner requires countless decisions, from which roast to
buy to how thick he wants to slice it.
