From: jeremy.burman@utoronto.ca
Date: Mon 26 Jan 2004 - 15:45:53 GMT
>>the third octopus also developed the teddy phobia.
> Have you got a reference for that?
I remember the story quite clearly but cannot remember where it came from. In
my search to find the source, however, I came across something that might
ultimately be more useful:
Robert, M. (1990). Observational Learning in Fish, Birds, and Mammals: A
Classified Bibliography Spanning over 100 Years of Research. "Psych Record,
40": 289-311.
"Science" *did* publish an octopus study in 1992 by Graziano Fiorito and Pietro
Scotto but their research has since suffered from some methodological
criticism. In addition, after the dust settled, Jean Boal (an animal
behaviourist at Millersville University in Pennsylvania) withdrew her own
initial findings of complex learning by octopuses and other cephalopods. While
the Fiorito & Scotto article wasn't the study I was looking for, Boal's
reaction seems to put the lie to my story.
I will keep looking but, in the interim, think of my story as focussing on
three chimps instead. For my intended purpose, which was to suggest at a means
for measuring memes, it doesn't really matter whether it was really an octopus
or not.
Jeremy Burman
http://individual.utoronto.ca/burman/
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