Not so much retarded as having a keen sense of who’s on top of the food chain. They have good self preservation instincts and boogie on out of there unless you get between mama and cubs
Ran into one taking a dump in the Gros Ventre in Wyoming. You’d a thought he was getting whipped. Grizz on the other hand.....
The vast majority black bear sows with cubs will not attack a man, even when the cubs are bawling for help.
This was shown by bear researchers as they routinely handled black bear cubs in the wild.
There are a few exceptions, of course, but they are very rare.
If you run from mama or try to climb a tree, you may trigger the "fleeing prey" or "fleeing combatant" instinct.