"Unlike the first book, the author here focuses on human learning psychology, exploring the essence of human learning from the perspective of psychology's developmental history, and tracing the arduous journey of memory research through the intersection of brain science and psychology."
—Zhou Xiaolin (PhD, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge; Dean, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University)

"Education should not swim against the current, but flow with it—using the key of psychology to follow students' cognitive laws, respect individual differences and learning patterns, and advocate teaching students according to their aptitude."
—Li Lun (Founder, Asian Existential Group Society; Honorary Chairman, China Institute of Group Analysis)

"As a sequel by Pan Kaiwen, former full-time psychology instructor at the National Defense University, it continues the first book's rigorous scientific style, using 12 classic psychology experiments as its thread and starting from the nature of cognitive neuroscience to let us see through the truth of how human nature operates."
—NetEase

"As a mother of an elementary-school child, reading the scientific experiments and cases in the book, I couldn't help but compare them with my own parenting; confusions past and present found their answers one by one. Finishing it, I felt suddenly enlightened."
—Douban reader

★ This is the second book in the Don't Challenge Human Nature series, carrying forward the rigorous, scientific style of the first. Using 12 classic psychology experiments as its thread, it starts from the nature of cognitive neuroscience to explore seven areas: memory, learning, attention, language acquisition, creativity, emotion, and personality.

★ The book collects 12 classic experiments including the "forgetting curve," "patient H.M.," and the "chimpanzee pass-the-ball experiment." Key cases: after H.M.'s hippocampus was removed, his new memories lasted only tens of seconds; Watson used an infant in an experiment to manufacture fear with a loud noise, and the fear generalized to everything furry. These experiments reveal: memory is not a single system, and fear can be "manufactured" after birth.

★ The book proposes two core propositions: "Human nature is a science with laws to follow. Human nature comes from our brain and also from our inner world." The preface reads: "For learning to proceed smoothly, the prerequisite must be complete emotional development and a sound personality, otherwise the child will have problems." These propositions strike at the essence of learning, early education, and emotional development.

12 experiments that decode how we remember, learn, and create—where brain meets mind.

This is a psychology popular-science work and the second book in the Don't Challenge Human Nature series, collecting 12 classic psychology experiments across seven areas: memory, learning, attention, language acquisition, creativity, emotion, and personality. It centers on 12 milestone experiments in psychology. The first three chapters explore the core functions of human cognition and learning—memory. From Ebbinghaus's memory curve to Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" experiment, from Lashley's "escape maze" to Penfield's "awake brain surgery," from Milner's study of H.M. to Kandel's sea-slug series, it details the history of memory research. Chapters four through six explore the essence of human learning—the journey from "passive learning to active learning to active construction." From Pavlov's series and Watson's Little Albert experiment to Skinner's operant conditioning, it discusses the nature of learning from behaviorism; from Hebb's discovery of neural conduction mechanisms it discusses the neural mechanism of dopamine; from Piaget's cognitive development theory and experiments (three-mountain, object permanence, conservation) it extends learning mechanisms from behavior to cognition. Tolman's "rat-in-maze" experiment proposed the "cognitive map"; Bruner's artificial-concept formation experiment elaborated the function of "cognitive structure." Then, Neisser's "chimpanzee pass-the-ball" experiment explains the cognitive processing mechanism of attention; Singer's "wolf child" case and Kellogg's "ape child" experiment, alongside Chomsky's series on generative grammar, explain the human "language acquisition device." Chapter nine uses Köhler's "ape insight" experiment to explore the nature and mechanism of creativity. With cognitive neuroscience data as evidence, the book probes the brain's operating mechanisms, helping readers find the real scientific explanation behind perplexing subjective experiences. The preface states: "Human nature is a science with laws to follow. Human nature comes from our brain and also from our inner world." And: "For the learning process to proceed smoothly, one prerequisite must be met—complete emotional development and a sound personality—otherwise the child will have problems."

Pan Kaiwen
A psychology researcher and popular-science author. A former full-time psychology instructor at the National Defense University and a retired military officer. He has long been committed to popularizing and writing about psychology, skilled at combining classic experiments with everyday-life topics and explaining professional theory in plain language. He is currently a partner, vice president, and head of product development at the Smile-ism psychology service platform, an invited researcher at the Shanghai Women's Physical and Mental Health Development Research Center, a master's supervisor in applied psychology at the School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, and a contracted author for Zhihu's Yanxuan column. His works have a broad readership across Zhihu, WeRead, and Douban, with a 9.1 rating on his Zhihu column.

01 The Amazing Hippocampus: "Patient H.M." Unlocks the Memory Code
The "Treated" Henry
Milner, Who Found Henry
Henry's "Pentagram" Experiment
The Indispensable "Sea Slug Experiment": Revealing the Nature of Memory
02 Sea-Slug Research and the "Emotion Priming" Experiment
Retrieval of Memory
The "Emotion Priming" of Memory
How to Improve Memory Retrieval Efficiency
03 From the "Forgetting Curve" to "War of the Ghosts," to "Awake Brain Surgery": What Is Memory, and Where Is It?
The First Quantifiable Memory Experiment
The Advanced "War of the Ghosts"
The Brain Destroyer
Awake Brain Surgery
04 From "Pavlov's Dog" to "Skinner's Pigeon": The Early Stage of Learning
Initial Learning: Stimulus–Response
Passive Learning: Forming Experience from Environmental Stimuli
Emotional Learning: Forming Experience Requires Profound Experience
Active Learning: Everything Can "Have a Relation"
05 The "Three-Mountain" and "Conservation" Experiments: Seeing Mental Development Through the Evolution of Causality
06 The Substance of Learning: The Amazing Dopamine
The Learning Paradox: A Major Flaw in Behaviorist Practice
The Essence of Learning: Building a "Causality" Map in the Real World
Lifelong Learning: Take Care of Your Curiosity
07 The "Concept Formation" Experiment: Seeing the Mechanism of Learning Through "Cognitive Structure"
The Discovery of the Cognitive Map
Cognitive Schema: The Fundamental Reference for Understanding the World
How Cognitive Structure Works in Learning
08 The Chimpanzee Pass-the-Ball Experiment: How to Stay Focused
The Chimpanzee Pass-the-Ball Experiment: Amazing Attention
The Invisible Gorilla
Why Such a Gap in Attention Between Children and Adults?
Concentrating Attention
Flow: Behind the Attention System
Taking Control of Your Own Life
09 Wolf Child vs. Ape Daughter: Why We Never Learn Foreign Languages Well
Wolf Child vs. Ape Daughter
The Human-Exclusive Grammar System
The Information Processing of Language
Those "Bilingual from Birth" Babies
The Real Obstacle to Second-Language Learning
Strategies for Learning Foreign Languages Well
10 The Ape Insight Experiment: How to Awaken Your Creativity?
The Insight Experiment: We Are Born with Creativity
Creativity Has Conditions
What Kind of Person Has Creativity
11 The "Oedipus" Curse: How to Overcome the Fear of "Success" and Awaken Your Creativity
The "Oedipus" Curse
The Fear of Success, Letting Creativity Fall Asleep
Strategies to Awaken Inner Creativity
12 Orphanages and Rhesus Monkeys: Emotional Bonding Is the Prerequisite for a Child's Growth
The Critical Period: Miss It Once, Miss It for Life
The Problem Children in the Orphanage
A Miraculous IQ Reversal
Emotional Attachment: The "Nutrition" Indispensable to Life
The Inhumane Children's Hospitalization System
Inspiration from the Rhesus Monkey
13 The Strange Situation Experiment: Seeing the Mechanism of Emotional Bonding
The Great Strange Situation Experiment
The Cost of Lacking Love
Living Out the Meaning of Your Own Life