Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA01087 (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 14:55:06 +0100 X-Authentication-Warning: tracy.umd.edu: debivort owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 09:52:41 -0400 (EDT) From: "Lawrence H. de Bivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu> X-Sender: debivort@tracy.umd.edu To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re:Dolphin philosophy Fw: Animal Intelligence In-Reply-To: <006001c00775$13cacdc0$622484d8@default> Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0008160949280.8123-100000@tracy.umd.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Fascinating...
On Wed, 16 Aug 2000, Anne Hansen wrote:
>> 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).
But could the dolphins not have concluded simply that the trainer's tap
meant "choose the box with the fish in it", rather than "choose the box I
tap"? If the latter, than the conclusion that dolphins can 'corrent' the
trainer would be unwarranted....
Lawrence de Bivort
|---------------------------------------------|
| ESI |
| Evolutionary Services Institute |
| "Crafting opportunities for a better world" |
| 5504 Scioto Road, Bethesda, MD 20816, USA |
| (301) 320-3941 |
|---------------------------------------------|
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 16 2000 - 14:56:01 BST