When memorising stops working

The learner on the last slide could memorise what to do because its world was small.

There were only a few rooms. Its list could say room 1: go right, room 2: go up, and so on. One memory for each situation.

Now take away the room number and give the learner a camera. It no longer receives room 2. It receives an image made from thousands of pixel values.

Take one step and those pixels change. Move slightly to the side and they change again. The learner might never receive exactly the same image twice.

Saving a separate memory for every picture would not help. A lesson learned from one view would be trapped there, unable to help with the next view.

The learner needs to recognise that different pictures can show the same useful thing, such as an open doorway ahead.