Play is an essential component of childhood, but parents and educators sometimes view it as an optional add-on, which gets in the way of learning. This view persists in spite of evidence that play is helpful and sometimes critical to learning in multiple domains, perhaps because precise mechanisms whereby play occasions learning are not well understood. Here, I propose a new research perspective on playful learning, which might fill this gap, and solidify our understanding of both play and learning: a focus on comparison and structural alignment. Comparison (and structural alignment, which highlights useful comparisons) is a well-studied learning mechanism, and it occurs often during free and guided play. Do we learn through play because we compare during play? I briefly summarize the learning benefits of comparison and sketch the ways in which play may trigger comparison. I then list several concrete research questions, through which we may inspect the role of comparison in mediating between play and learning.

中文翻译：

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为什么游戏等于学习：比较作为游戏中的学习机制

玩耍是童年的重要组成部分，但父母和教育工作者有时将其视为可选的附加组件，这会妨碍学习。尽管有证据表明游戏对多个领域的学习有帮助，有时甚至是至关重要的，但这种观点仍然存在，这可能是因为游戏场合学习的精确机制还没有被很好地理解。在这里，我提出了一个关于游戏性学习的新研究视角，它可能会填补这一空白，并巩固我们对游戏和学习的理解：关注比较和结构对齐。比较（以及突出有用比较的结构对齐）是一种经过充分研究的学习机制，它经常发生在自由游戏和引导游戏中。我们是否通过游戏学习，因为我们在游戏中比较？我简要总结了比较的学习好处，并概述了游戏可能引发比较的方式。然后我列出了几个具体的研究问题，通过这些问题我们可以检验比较在游戏和学习之间的中介作用。