Humans are curious beings. We investigate and explore. We experiment and learn from them. But that process of learning is not very easy to study. Each person learns in different ways. The verbal part of learning is just one piece of the puzzle. The process of learning happens in many other ways, which makes is hard to study (especially in the past). The aim for this thesis is to examine whether experiment could be a tool to use in that research. It also aims to see if cultural transmission theory could be a theoretical base to study learning processes. The thesis describes experiments as a method, the relations between theoretical and practical memory and how culture is usually transmitted. It also studies two examples of experiments that were carried out in order to study learning. The thesis discusses the result of the experiments separately and in connection to cultural transmission theory. It discusses the possibilities of experiments as a method and its relation to the process of learning. It also discusses the relevance of modern novices. / Människan är en nyfiken varelse. Hon undersöker saker, prövar sig fram och lär sig av sina experiment. Något som bidrar till att vi dominerar planeten är att vi inte behåller kunskapen för oss själva, utan delar med oss. Detta inkluderar allt från sociala regler till redskapsrelaterade färdigheter och andra saker vi behöver för att klara oss. Inlärning är en process som sker på mer än det verbala planet, vilket gör det till ett svårstuderat ämne. Det blir ännu svårare i forntiden. Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka om experiment skulle kunna vara ett verktyg för att studera den här inlärningsprocessen. Den syftar också till att se om kulturell transmissionsteori skulle kunna utgöra en teoretisk grund för dessa studier. Två experiment med fokus på inlärning används för att utvidga diskussionen. Uppsatsen utgår från följande frågeställningar: Hur kan experiment bidra till att förstå läroprocesser? Kan kulturell transmissionsteori vara en teoretisk grund för att förstå läroprocesser? Uppsatsen inleder med att redogöra för kulturell transmissionsteori. Teorin, som kretsar kring överföring av kulturell information till nästa generation, förklaras. Uppsatsen redogör för de grundläggande dragen, dess grundkomponenter samt vad som kan gå fel under överföringen. Den tar även upp den mer evolutionistiskt betonade inriktningen i teoribildningen kring hantverk, vilken brukar kallas för darwinism. Uppsatsen går sedan över till att fokusera på hur minnet fungerar, både på ett teoretiskt plan men även ett kroppsligt. Därefter beskrivs faktorer i inlärningssituationen som kan påverka resultatet, däribland hur undervisningen går till och vad situationen behöver för att fungera. Uppsatsen förklarar även experimentell arkeologi och hur detta kan appliceras i fallet inlärning. Även Chaîne Opératoire nämns. Därefter ges en övergripande beskrivning av de två exempel som uppsatsen använder sig av. Det ena exemplet innefattar mer än ett experimenttillfälle och med olika undervisningsmetoder. Dess nybörjarexperiment beskrivs sedan i detalj vad gäller utförande, resultat och de undervisningsmetoder hon använder sig av. Uppsatsen övergår sedan till att diskutera resultaten från experimentstudierna och vad man kan notera i det fysiska material som blev resultatet av experimenten. Det fysiska resultatet, alltså föremålen som experimenten resulterade i, sätts i relation till undervisningsmetod, know-how samt hur hög grad fel som uppstod. Resultatet pekar på att en aktivt engagerad lärare lyckas bäst med sin informationsöverföring. Därefter diskuteras hur pass relevant en modern novis egentligen är. Frågor om erfarenhet och djupare förståelse av fyndmaterialet lyfts samt frågan om exakta återgivningar. Därefter diskuterar uppsatsen Chaîne Opératoire, inlärning och kulturell transmission i relation till resultatet från experimenten. Chaîne Opératoire föreslås som ett möjligt sätt att strukturera och identifiera de olika stegen i den tillverkningsprocess som ett experiment går igenom. Begreppet diskuteras också som en teoretisk bas för att studera utvecklingen av know-how hos en elev, vilket bygger på att det finns material från en erfaren individ. Kulturell transmissionsteori diskuteras sedan som en ytterligare teoretisk grund i relation till inlärning och hur olika variationer mellan dess grundkomponenter skulle kunna användas i relation till studier av inlärning. Uppsatsen resonerar kring en kombination av experiment, Chaîne Opératoire och kulturell transmissionsteori som en möjlig teoretisk grund för ett ramverk som inkluderar kroppsliga som teoretiska aspekter samt som en möjlighet till att genom att utforska olika variationer av dessa eftersträva ett fysiskt resultat som är jämförbart med ett arkeologiskt material.

This thesis focuses on the domestic use of plant-based medicines within Early Modern English and Colonial American households, and establishes the defining framework of a domestic botanical culture. It reconstructs the relationship between domestic, popular, and learned medical cultures to reveal the breadth of that practice, demonstrating the unique characteristics of the domestic culture which are underpinned by a shared canon of herbs and a high degree of flexible adaptability by individual practitioners. The botanicals (medicinal plants and the remedies made from them) are themselves analysed through the genres of household receipt book manuscripts, private letters, and journals, as well as almanacs, vernacular medical books, travel writing and settler texts in order to explore more fully and expand our understanding of the domestic culture within a broad social setting. Oral, scribal, and print networks are reconstructed in order to demonstrate that domestic medical practitioners shared a distinctive and influential medical construct, commonly portrayed by current scholarship as a mere reflection of popular and learned practices. Close engagement with both Early Modern English and Colonial women’s receipt books in particular reveals a commonality of practice based upon a shared materia medica which was sensitive and responsive to individual adaptation. Old and new world herbs are examined as a means of providing ingress into this shared and communal domestic practice, as well as to highlight the prevalence and importance of household individualization. The clear commonality of plants in trans-Atlantic domestic use demonstrates a continuous, shared, inherited practice which ends only with eighteenth-century Colonial inclusion of indigenous plants not found in the shared canon. Contemporary views of Early Modern and Colonial domestic medical practice are explored in order to argue that far from simply reflecting learned medical thinking and practice, domestic knowledge and use of botanical medicines was uniquely practical, communal, and flexible in its administration and expression.

This essay discusses if teaching English literature in high school classes, in accordance with the socio-cultural learning theory, can be considered to promote language learning substantially better than teaching English literature in accordance with the transmission theory. This essay also investigates and compares how well teaching English literature, in accordance with each of these two learning theories, fulfills stipulations in the Swedish National Curriculum for high school courses English 5, 6 and 7. In order to show differences between the socio-cultural learning theory and the transmission theory there are presentations and discussions of different teaching strategies and learning tasks/exercises in accordance with each of these two learning theories. The base for argumentation in this essay is constituted by analytical and theoretical studies of teaching English literature in accordance with the socio-cultural learning theory and in accordance with the transmission theory. There are also theoretical studies of the Swedish National Curriculum (of high school courses English 5, 6 and 7) and previous empirical research and studies (which include teaching and/or language learning and the socio-cultural learning theory). This essay also includes a presentation and discussion of advantages and disadvantages for each learning theory.

Psychological research suggests that children acquire cultural concepts through early developing cognitive mechanisms combined with specific cultural learning. An understudied area of cultural acquisition is children’s understanding of non-human minds, such as God. This thesis gives evidence that young children need not anthropomorphize non-human minds in order to understand them. Instead, children have a general “theory of mind” that is tailored through experience to accommodate the various important minds in their cultural environment. The intuitive default is toward super-attributes, making children naturally inclined or “prepared” to acquire god concepts. Four empirical studies were conducted with 75 British and 66 Israeli preschool-aged children. In Study 1, children participated in an ignorance-based theory-of-mind task and were asked to consider the mental states of human and supernatural agents. Children at all ages attributed correct knowledge to the supernatural agents and ignorance to the human agents. In Study 2, children participated in two perception-based theory-of-mind tasks and were asked to consider the perspective of two super-perceiving animals, God, and two human agents. Three-year-olds attributed knowledge to the animals and God and, by age four, children could distinguish among agents correctly. Also, by age four, children recognized that aging limits the perception of human agents but not God’s. In Study 3, children participated in a memory-based theory-of-mind task in which they were asked to consider the memory of God and differently aged agents Children at all ages responded that God would remember something that the children themselves had forgotten. By age five, children responded that a baby and granddad would have forgotten. These results propose that preschool-aged children regard individual constraints when considering mental states. Study 4 focused on children’s notions of immortality. Cultural differences were found. British children attributed immortality to God before correctly attributing mortality to human agents, and Israeli children attributed immortality to God and mortality to humans more consistently than did British children. Collectively, these studies indicate that children do not have to resort to anthropomorphism to reason about non-human agents but instead have the cognitive capacity to represent other types of minds because of early cognitive capacities. It appears that concepts vary in their degree of fit with early-developing human conceptual systems, and hence, vary in their likelihood of successful cultural transmission.