[originaltext] Well, to continue, as I mentioned earlier, there is also rese

Well, to continue, as I mentioned earlier, there is also research that demonstrates that individuals perform worse, not better, on tasks when other people are there. R. W. Harburt did an interesting experiment. He had his subjects learn a finger maze. This is a game in which you indicate with your finger the way through a complex system of passages or paths. The subjects who had an audience did worse than the subjects who did alone.
    Now how can we explain these very different results? It seemed very confusing for a long time. Social psychologist, John Roberts, finally cleared up the confusion about why people sometimes perform better and sometimes worse in front of an audience. Roberts found that the presence of an audience facilitates what you already know how to do. That is, if you know what you are doing, having an audience helps you do it better. But if you don’t already know how to do something, you will probably make some mistakes and you will make mistakes for a longer time if you have an audience. That’s exactly what happened to the subjects who were learning the finger maze.
    So, if you are doing well, having an audience increases the chances that you will continue to do well. If you are doing badly, having an audience increases the chances that you will continue to do badly. Roberts cleverly pointed out that when you are first learning something, you are better off working alone than practicing with other people.
23. What did the speaker probably discuss before coming to this part of the talk?
24. When does the presence of an audience facilitate your performance according to Roberts?
25. What does Roberts think is a better way to learn new things?