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process explain how Eugene was able to walk around the block and find the jar of nuts in the kitchen?

    To test if Eugene was forming new habits, Squire devised an experiment. He took sixteen different objects—bits of plastic and brightly colored pieces of toys—and glued them to cardboard rectangles. He then divided them into eight pairs: choice A and choice B.In each pairing, one piece of cardboard, chosen at random, had a sticker placed on the bottom that read “correct.” 1.21

    Eugene was seated at a table, given a pair of objects, and asked to choose one. Next, he was told to turn over his choice to see if there was a “correct” sticker underneath. This is a common way to measure memory. Since there are only sixteen objects, and they are always presented in the same eight pairings, most people can memorize which item is “correct” after a few rounds. Monkeys can memorize all the “correct” items after eight to ten days.

    Eugene couldn’t remember any of the “correct” items, no matter how many times he did the test. He repeated the experiment twice a week for months, looking at forty pairings each day.

    “Do you know why you are here today?” a researcher asked at the beginning of one session a few weeks into the experiment.

    “I don’t think so,” Eugene said.

    “I’m going to show you some objects. Do you know why?”

    “Am I supposed to describe them to you, or tell you what they are used for?” Eugene couldn’t recollect the previous sessions at all.

    But as the weeks passed, Eugene’s performance improved. After twenty-eight days of training, Eugene was choosing the “correct” object 85 percent of the time. At thirty-six days, he was right 95 percent of the time. After one test, Eugene looked at the researcher, bewildered by his success.

    “How am I doing this?” he asked her.

    “Tell me what is going on in your head,” the researcher said. “Do you say to yourself, ‘I remember seeing that one’?”

    “No,” Eugene said. “It’s here somehow or another”—he pointed to his head—“and the hand goes for it.”

    To Squire, however, it made perfect sense. Eugene was exposedto a cue: a pair of objects always presented in the same combination. There was a routine: He would choose one object and look to see if there was a sticker underneath, even if he had no idea why he felt compelled to turn the cardboard over. Then there was a reward: the satisfaction he received after finding a sticker proclaiming “correct.” Eventually, a habit loop emerged.

    EUGENE’S HABIT LOOP

    To make sure this pattern was, in fact, a habit, Squire conducted one more experiment. He took all sixteen items and put them in front of Eugene at the same time. He asked him to put all the “correct” objects into one pile.

    Eugene had no idea where to begin. “Gosh sakes, how to remember this?” he asked. He reached for one object and started to turn it over. The experimenter stopped him. No, she explained. The task was to put the items in
piles
. Why was he trying to turn them over?

    “That’s just a habit, I think,” he said.

    He couldn’t do it. The objects, when presented outside of the context of the habit loop, made no sense to him.

    Here was the proof Squire was looking for. The experiments demonstrated that Eugene had the ability to form new habits, even when they involved tasks or objects he couldn’t remember for more than a few seconds. This explained how Eugene managed to go for a walk every morning. The cues—certain trees on corners or the placement of particular mailboxes—were consistent every time hewent outside, so though he couldn’t recognize his house, his habits always guided him back to his front door. It also explained why Eugene would eat breakfast three or four times a day, even if he wasn’t hungry. As long as the right cues were present—such as his radio or the morning light through his windows—he automatically followed the script dictated by