Digital Twins: The Blueprint Becomes the Blue-eyed Boy

Ever wondered why people in offices are seen more around the photocopier or printer rather than their computers?

- By Pratima H

Harry F. Harlow's lab was bold, curious and all set to test some prevailing hard-boiled theories of behavioural scientists and psychologists. Especially the ones about letting babies sleep alone. And so arrived the 'surrogate mothers'.

He chose some infant rhesus monkeys and gave them a choice - of course, only after doing some tweaking to these inanimate mothers. One was a simple construction of wire and wood but attached with a milk bottle. The other one was draped in foam rubber and soft terry cloth. But that's that. The cloth version, sometimes, had no food or resources that meant anything to the baby monkey. He even added jolts, barbed spikes and other repellers to this version.

What they found out was surprising but very useful in assessing parent-child contact attachment approaches. The monkeys went up to the cloth replica the most, and again and again! Even after being rejected in some cases. They went back to it. When they were scared. When they were tired. When they heard a noise. Every time.

What transpired in the Department of Psychology Primate Lab and Regional Primate Research Centre, University of Wisconsin, many decades back was revolutionary, pivotal and hugely instrumental in parenting psychology. However, the experiments also got a lot of brickbats for the way isolation, shocks and spikes were administered with these little monkeys.

Had it not been the 40s or the 60s but 2024, the experiments would have been designed and executed differently. And, perhaps, spared a lot of the criticisms around lack of ethics and sensitivity.