Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA00738 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 16 Aug 2000 12:33:53 +0100 Message-ID: <006001c00775$13cacdc0$622484d8@default> From: "Anne Hansen" <tazzie@bolian.upnaway.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Re:Dolphin philosophy Fw: Animal Intelligence Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 19:28:02 +0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Off track slightly to communication but I thought this may be of interest..
Does any one know of other such experiments
Anne
To: <SCIENCE-MATTERS@YOUR.abc.net.au>
Sent: Monday, 14 August 2000 11:38
Subject: Animal Intelligence
> There seems to be a 'work to rule' policy on the part of the listserv on
> weekends. I sent the following message on Sunday but it was delivered to a
> black hole in cyberspace, I suspect.
>
>
> In the Weekend Australian of 5/6 Aug 00 there is a three-page article
about
> intelligence in animals. The article also discusses whether or not 'human
> rights' should be extended to animals, and if so, to which animals.
>
> The most interesting part (to me) of the article is the opening few paras.
> An experiment was done to determine if dolphins were capable of realising
> that a person had a belief that they knew to be false. The experiment was
> conducted as follows:
>
> Two boxes were placed in a tank. A fish would be in one, the other would
be
> empty. The handler would tap on one box--the one that had a fish in it. If
> the dolphin touched that box with his/her nose, the fish would be given to
> the dolphin. But if the dolphin touched the wrong box--no fish. After a
> while the dolphins learned that the box that their handler tapped was the
> one containing the fish, so they would touch this one.
>
> When they were familiar with this, the handler would pretend to be
> distracted. While the handler was facing the other way, a person would
> exchange the boxes. The handler would then turn back and tap on a box. The
> dolphins then had to choose between the 'correct box' (assuming that the
> handler did not realise the exchange had taken place) and the box that he
> tapped. Although the scientific paper to be submitted to a peer-reviewed
> journal has not been through the refereeing process, according to this
> article the statistics indicated a significant number of correct answers
> (ie, that the dolphins were aware of the 'false belief' of the handler,
and
> so touched the box he had not tapped).
>
> The article states that 'Such tests have been recognised as an indicator
of
> advanced cognitive abilities in humans since the early 1980s'. Generally,
> children get tests similar to this wrong until they are about 4-6 years of
> age. Understanding such false beliefs is thought to depend on making an
> inference about a mental state in someone else, thereby (perhaps)
indicating
> an awareness of 'self' and 'others'. One scientist is quoted as saying:
> ''This is a test (that) if replicated, indicates that we are not the only
> sentient beings on earth.'
>
> Even allowing for the journalistic hyperbole, I believe that this is a
> fascinating and potentially very important finding.
>
> Further into the article is neurological/anatomical evidence that the
great
> apes may have an awareness of self. Cells in the frontal lobe of people
that
> serve no known function other than as a centre of self-awareness have now
> been isolated from the frontal lobes of chimpanzees, gorillas and
> orang-outangs.
> Chris Forbes-Ewan
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