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Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV
Whiteox writes about an Australian researcher named Renata Pronk, who has discovered that octopuses prefer HDTV. She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay. Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses. Miss Pronk's insight was that the octopus eye is so refined that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string. A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence. It would certainly be possible to quibble about the definition of "personality" employed, and whether Miss Pronk had successfully measured it.
...your standard geek.
What, too close to home? :)
So all octopi act exactly the same?
Only Australians would be cruel enough to give Vegemite to poor defenseless octopi.
When I read that headline, I thought it applied to many of the people I know as well...
just remember that.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
That is all.
How and why? Whats this project fund for?
I sometimes wonder why humans evolved to be so irrational, and since societies' proliferation of individual preferences is one example of this I hope that this research continues to be funded.
HGTV -- Home and Garden Television : The bane of many a married man's existence. Maybe they should design octopus habitats that adhere to the principles of Feng Shui : "Oh my god! That's perfect! It just balances out the energy of the algae encrusted rock in the center!"
jdb2
I think that by understanding a creature as alien to us as an octopus, we're learning more about what is 'intelligence'. While they're not going to be developing a civilization any time soon, its cool to have an invertebrate that on many levels is closer to primate intelligence than many mammals.
Cue the nerd insults: 'Yeah, well, you're an octopus!'
http://www.sims.org.au/research/Pronk-MQ-octopus.cfm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/octopuses-give-eight-thumbs-up-for-highdefinition-tv/2008/12/19/1229189886181.html
Oceanianica News (Deep under Chowder Bay): In an important press release today the octopuses involved in the Cowderbay Excursion report on their scientific excursion into the ape territory to assess the intelligence and personality of the horrific to look at four creatures with four limbs that only move on two of them that call themselves humans. The 32 members of the scientific team were specially trained in observational techniques that emphasized uniform behaviors so as to minimize the impact of their presence on the lower life forms being studied.
A four limbed creature who self identifies as "Miss Pronk" was extensively interviewed and examined. She attempted to use primitive externalized colored skin image projectors to get the 32 excursion members to react. Her primitive attempts at communication failed with what she called "PAL". Then the subject attempted to communicate using something she called "HDTV" by showing images of food. At the sight of a captive octopus the excursion members elected for a quick withdrawal back to the forward base camp in Chowder Bay (human's name for it). The members of the excursion ensured at all times to not reveal any individuality by using the uniform motion training instilled in all octopus from birth.
An assessment from the team after their safe return to Aquatica City was that the human subject lacked any personality during any of the tests. She failed to move on her two upper limbs and also failed to use her lower limbs except for moving about. In addition she had enclosed herself inside an flexible and rigid outer shell and refused all attempts to leave her shell so that we could examine her personality up close.
Naturally the humans require additional study. Under no circumstances should attempts be made to communicate with them until the safe return of the captive octopus hostages can be executed.
In addition it was discovered that while some humans have an additional appendage that is usually kept in the shell the human self identified as Miss Pronk failed to accept any of the advances by the others to have her interact with this appendage. For this reason we conclude that Miss Pronk has no personality.
Almost as wonderful as people who are so fixated and fanatical as to interject inane and unrelated political comment in a science story about octopus.
If they see PAL as a series of stills, do they get visibly angry when forced to watch NTSC?
Ok, a couple of problems here:
- Standard video is not 24 frames per second, as the original article states. That's the speed for film, not video.
- 1080i HDTV is displayed at the same frame rate as standard definition TV. In PAL land, that's 50 fields per second, which makes 25 frames per second.
- Even at 720p's 50 full frames per second in PAL countries, that does not give the perception of smoother motion. SDTV will give you 50 half-resolution fields per second, and 720P will give you 50 full-resolution frames per second. The motion smoothness will be essentially the same. The real difference is the resolution delivered with each picture.
So, in other words, they're just like most slashdotters?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
"that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps)"
So she changed the resolution, and the framerate... and so she now does not know if it is the pixel desity or the framerate that made the difference. In addition, it would be good to note the display type as analog and digital displays work differently...
Her name is actually ANITA. Anita Pronk.
...made me really hungry!
I disagree.
How we know is more important than what we know.
PRONKING amazing!
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
This almost seems like an Ig Nobel coming in early. But being that this is the holiday season, I'll bite, at the expense of our Australian folks.
She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay.
Um, not for me to peck around at Australian dialect, but I think the proper word would be incarcerated.
Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses.
WTF?!?! Austrailian scientists: "Hey, what should we do this afternoon?" "Ah, let's show some video to the octopi." Try "Buckaroo Banzai," I think that they will like that one. It's kinda funny, if you understand octopi humor. "Miami Vice" is right out.
She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string.
After this treatment, I'd grab for the bottle in an instant.
A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence.
Just the other day I tossed a chick out of the bed, and said, "You *really* have a great personality, but you are so cold and slimy."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yeah, I know a few eight-footed people too..
It would be a heptopus anyway.
In fact, you'd wonder why she even needed to bother. Most animals have eyesight that is not as good as humans' in acuity, but much better at picking up motion and flicker.
In other words, while they couldn't read text at a distance (even if they could read), regular TV looks quite "flickery" to them. That's the reason why most dogs are not interested in watching television.
Also, the octopus eye is probably much like a dog's eye: In every structure of the canine eyeball, they have sacrificed detailed acuity in favor of light-gathering ability. The sensitivity to motion is what still lets them hunt their prey.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I also have no personality and prefer HDTV!
I want to thank all of the noble Slashdot readers who tagged this story "Pronk," yet again proving their intelligence and foresight in picking a tag which I am sure will occur again and often in the future. Their brave efforts at usefully categorizing articles never ceases to astound.
Slashdot is a pretty cool guy eh posts dupes and doesn't afraid of anything.
Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV
This has to be the single greatest slashdot headline I've ever read.... research performed on two seemingly unrelated things combined into one project. Cue bad jokes about what television shows those with 'no personalities' must enjoy.
Sounds like my ex.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Is there really a need to identify whether or not Pronk is married? What bearing does this have on the story? Or is it really just a way to subtly discount her research 'cause it came from, you know, a woman.
When I read that headline, I thought it applied to many of the people I know as well...
To put it simply Octopuses are natural born couch potatoes. Makes you wonder how they'd react to a beer can?
"A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence."
In other words, they are like 90%+ of the human population. Except for the high level of intelligence part, of course.
What's hindering them from developing a civilization soon ( In geological time of course ;) is the fact that their lifespans are so short.
Humanity has been able to carry on numerous projects on a bigger scale than the average human's lifespan.
My personal idea about the prerequisite for a civilisation are :
- A decent way to interact with the environment (at least octopi have plenty of tentacles - dolphins on the other hand, however big their brain is, don't have the physically mean to put their brain at work on much things)
- A good a quite developed communication system (we humans have speech - octopi seem to have colour-changing communication)
- A life cycle including nurturing the small. If the parents of a specie have to take care of their kids during their first months/years, that gives also a chance to teach them (thanks to good communication) what they have learned to do with their arms. As opposed to animals whose children are 100% autonomous after birth and can immediately wander on their own.
That's where this whole business of "programmed death after reproduction" sucks. Not because 4-5 years is short, but because they are genetically programmed to self-destruct (or starve to death if the self-destruction glands are removed) not long after laying eggs (about the time the eggs hatch according to wikipedia).
There's no nurturing of the kids. Whatever cool and neat trick the parent octopi may have learnt dies with them. They don't get a chance to transmit it to their children.
Because of this no culture can be carried on, and with this : no civilisation.
But don't despair there's a kind of mutation called neoteny where some individual are able to reproduce without having acquired all characteristics of adult and still retaining some juvenile trait. Some future octopi may mutate and be able to reproduce, yet not die once the eggs hatches.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You're complaining about gov't funding for octopus research instead of the 18 billion for the auto companies, or the 800 billion bailout for the financial sector?
That's kind of like being gang raped by every stockbroker on Wall Street and then complaining about the jism in your hair.
CHOW-DER!, say it Frenchy!!!
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
that they are held captive, in probable danger of life, confined in various containers ?
do people exhibit their personalities and normal behaviour when thrown to jail temporarily ?
Read radical news here
...her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string
Can we assume it was a beer bottle?
That's kind of like being gang raped by every stockbroker on Wall Street and then complaining about the jism in your hair.
that's still a valid complaint, though.
While -i is the plural for some Latin -us endings (the other option being a stem change followed by -a as in genus/genera), octopus is a Greek word. So the plural is "octopodes".
(For non-Latin / Greek students: ignore this, saying "octopodes" will give you a reputation as "that weird guy" at best and a "grammer[sic] nazi" at worst.
I for one, welcome our octopus overlords.
I wonder if the Octopus's name is Grigori and has a penchant for attacking women on the beach?
I really can't stand it when people who can't write try to do funny news articles.
You do realize the whole article is a joke, right?
Octopuses give eight thumbs up for high-def TV
Well, duh. What kind of self-respecting cephalopod would opt for standard definition in this day and age?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Oh, would it now?
Oh, shush. Nothing wrong with that one. Not hilarious, but a respectable attempt.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
It was an Australian researcher, so my answer has to be yes.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Is that you?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So I wouldn't pass judgement on octopus personality until somebody compares younger octopuses to older ones.
With tentacles like this, who needs personality?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Reminds me of A Deepness in the Sky--the aliens there had such good eyesight, they found human video technology hard to work with.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Call me cynical, but I thought the obvious spelling error may have been placed to simply obtain attention. It seems to have worked considering I am posting.
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
"Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff that matters."
Sure...
because octopi obviously make up a large part of the prospective HDTV market.
opening a jar of vegemite displays dexterity, not intelligence. Only a crazy aussie would think vegemite-seeking behavior was a sign of anything but blind dumb exploration... the results of opening one, presumably underwater, or even in the kitchen are never good.
Sounds a bit like a guy I dated a few years back. He was all over me like an octopus, had no personality and lit up when he saw the latest technology.
But slashdot readers wouldn't be like that, would they !
Waitaminute, exactly what type of screens were used in the experiment? CRT? LCD? plasma? DLP? OLED?
Getting answers to that question would go some way to determining wether it's the differing refresh rate of the image on the screens the octopi are seeing, or the actual framerate of the footage.
Everyone seems to be hung up with the framerate of the footage but forget that CRT & single chip DLP displays can have a noticable flicker whereas LCD (TFT), plasma (to some extent) & OLED are practically flicker free when a static image is being dispayed.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
RON POCTOPUS!!!
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
wow! From this we can conclude: 1) Your sense of humour is bizarre 2) You are sexually frustrated (we all know why) 3) Due to points 1 and 2 you must therefore be a social retard.
The Octopuses favorite show is Animal Channel.
This is what I hate about science. There are so many scientists who seek to know things which are so irrelevant that the only possible good the knowledge could do is satisfy some curiosity. I mean, really, what initiated this study? The article doesn't say.
The obvious answer to the question, 'why do octopuses react to HD t.v. and not SD' can easily be found through conjecture - 'because octopuses eyes are different than human eyes.' Lo and behold! That's what the study finds. The greater question is, why did anyone give a shit to begin with?
The personality tidbit is equally useless. First they fail to realize that if you want to pick up on personality traits you need to study a lifeform in its natural habitat. They tried to confuse the octopuses and succeeded. Big whoop.
Personality in animals - and by personality I don't mean "having repetition in your responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or consistently aggressive." I mean it as an ineffable idea which we, as humans, mutually understand. Predators and omnivores have personalities (people, cats, dogs) while herbavores do not (bunnies, cows). Hence why bunnies make terrible pets.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
In a second finding, the Macquarie University marine biology researcher resolved a long scientific debate, discovering that octopuses, despite their intelligence, lack individual personalities.
I am sure an octopus has enough trouble just trying to survive in its habitat and find food to live. I am sure developing a personality is not high on it's priorities, so watching crab on TV would definitely pique it's interest because of the movement and it is a crab, which they must recognize.
The people on this site love articles about animals and robots for some reason. LOL I have to start reading the Apple section.
There isn't really any reason to assume that the rate of human learning is applicable to any non-human species.
Specially in the context of the current article, which spawned from the fact that the nervous system of the squid is working so fast that perhaps for them the 25fps of SDTV would not be perceived as motion but as a slideshow.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Under no circumstances should attempts be made to communicate with them until the safe return of the captive octopus hostages
OMG! Bush is an octopus!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I work with many octopi myself.
Oh, that's just too punny -- only I'm not sure if you meant it, or just made a typo.
For those not familiar with Japanese, otaku is the word for "nerd" -- generally not in any positive sense. The word stems from the roots o-, being a generic honorific prefix to refer to things not your own (simply speaking), and taku or "residence", the underlying implication being someone who never leaves the house.
Meanwhile, tako is Japanese for "octopus".
I once heard of an idea for opening a chain of Mexican-themed seafood fast-food restaurants around Japan, called "Tako Taco"...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
This lady hasn't played FF6. Ultros has more personality than an annoying uncle.
Clearly this is in direct contradiction to the Tarvunty, and should be stopped, lest a holy jihad erupt! tarvuism.org
teleny, friend of cats.
I think you are thinking of this.
Is increased knowledge of our natural world not a wonderful thing?
And then watch some TV when we're done.
Sorry to go a little grammer nazi on you, but there is no fullstop after Dr. Since the last letter of word to be abbreviated is the last letter of the abbreviation, the fullstop should not be present.
Doctor - Dr not Dr.
Mister - Mr not Mr.
Sorry about that :)
.
I know what you mean when your own comments apply to y our own articles.
That's been the case in the UK for the last decade or two (longer at Cambridge) but in the U.S. the period is still the norm (as it was pretty much everywhere up until 1950 or so.
Not to go all history nazi on you or anything...
--MarkusQ
P.S. And (switching to spelling Nazi mode) grammar is spelt with an "a."
Because usually it's the ones on TV without a personality!
I'll be here all week.
She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string
Obviously Octopi have evolved over millenia to be Nature's perfect PC FPS gamers.
Not only do they an entire limb to devote to each primary control input (w,a,s,d,q,e plus fire and altfire or jump) but it seems they won't even look at a display unless it starts to approach 60FPS.
Props to the Oct.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This article is pronksurd! You can't go pronking articles about pronks!
I thought the story was going to say they like American Idol.
Saying that the inconsistent reaction of the octopuses is the only factor proving that they have no personality seems incredibly short sighted to me.
Have they considered that environmental factors may have a play in the issue? Is it possible that mood could be considered part of having a personality that effects action?
The inconsistent reaction between octopuses actually proves personality in my mind. If all the octopuses reacted exactly the same, and they are all tested in the same environment, then we we have clear evidence that is an extra factor involved in the process in addition to instinct and environmental reaction.
I haven't commented on Slashdot in years, but this one really bugged me.
Ok, but what about this octopus (about 2/3 down the page)?
(anecdote is not proof yadda yadda, but still)
If their theory is correct, the fps shouldn't matter, rather it would be - do they react to an LCD tv versus a CRT tv? Not a lot of stuff is recorded at 60 fps so I can't imagine that being the difference. Whether or not the image stays on the screen is much more likely.
HDTV is NOT 50FPS it's between 24 and 30FPS. At the very best, it's 30FPS displayed at 60Hz but this seems like another example of someone confusing frames per second with refresh rate.
Three things :
We speak English, not Latin
1. "octopi" is accepted as a possible plural in english, too. The original poster started the discussion using the analogy-based plural. I kept using it for overall coherency of the thread.
And like it or not, analogy-based formation of words is actually a quite widespread phenomenon in the evolution of language. There are numerous example of classical greek and latin word - as well as in more modern language - which aren't 100% correct, but look very much like the other words in the category and thus the usage sticks.
Once usage gets widespread, it begins being accepted as a norm in the language.
Our spoken language are still evolving, things change, new forms that aren't 100% correct are finally accepted into mainstream. Get over it, and stop bitching on every thread of a forum where there's no guarantee that the other person actually speaks English.
Or start exclusively using old Sanskrit when communicating on the web, because every modern spoken language (as well as the classical European languages) is an awful corruption of the original Indoeuropean root.
it's not "octopi", it's "octopuses".
2. Ok, if you really want to play the anal-retentive grammar nazi type, get your thing straight :
Feet in Greek is "pous, podes".
The anal-retentive pedantic plural of "octopus" is "octopodes".
For the rest of us, whatever the dictionary says, is good enough.
As I said, octopi (by analogy mechanism) is currently in the dictionary.
Goddammit
3. Yes, I'm sure that swearing on an internet thread is the single best method to correct and teach people how to spell unusual words.
Being polite is completely an option !
Disclaimer : I did study classical Greek and Latin.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yeah, it's a shame octopuses have eight arms not feet.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
If they lived longer that would give them more time to plan our downfall.
8 limbs good
4 limbs bad
death to the vertebrates!
I believe all the octopuses would be named John
Good luck getting the remote back from them!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
It's easy to imagine that the reason octopuses respond "randomly" when the screen is employed is due to something unrelated to personality, such as them "testing" this new situation to see what response they should evoke to bring back the crab. If she's not rewarding them with the crab after a specific action, they just keep trying different things randomly hoping it will come back. If that is indeed what they are doing, I'd say they gain another point in the smart score even if it were more instinct that conscious thought that would cause that behavior.
Like the white rats in a funny book most of us have read.. Perhaps they are measuring us ..?
...aren't octopuses closely related to cuttlefish? *gasps*
Maybe the octopi sacrifice their lifespan to Cthulhu to allow him to live forever!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"The definition of personality," she said, "is having repetition in your responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or consistently aggressive."
So they showed a mixture of those? IANAO (oceanographer), but she might be an idiot. That sounds like a pretty complex personality to me if you are bold, shy, and aggressive on different occasions.
I have never heard of such a distinction in the arms of the octopus. Are you sure you aren't confusing them with squid, which have 8 arms and two longer tentacles that are used for capturing food?
Your brain is not a computer.
She was tiny then and lived for almost two years which is pretty long lived for an octopus.
Yeah, especially in any near proximity to myself. Octopus is probably my favourite seafood. But the bigger ones are usually much tastier than the babies.
But these critters are just about the only ones that bring on any pangs of guilt to myself as a (now) recreational diver. They are really quite intelligent and playful, and I find it much more of a wrench to kill them than I do for a fish.
Incidentally, for those unversed in this culinary delight: Octopus need no bashing or thrashing to tenderise them. A long, slow cooking or a very fast treatment on a hotplate will suffice, and they just melt in the mouth. Anything in between is guaranteed to produce something rubbery and not very nice.
...welcome our soul-less Octopi overlords.
I do believe we have all been Pronk'd by this story.
Is this sig nificant?
Is it really that big of a #$#%ing deal? I used to see this on the Mage forums on WOW. Hey fellow Mages! MAGI!!! IT'S MAGES!!! MAGI!!!
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
People will search the 'dot for Pron and find that Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV.
If that doesn't lead to an intellectual wake-up call, I don't know what will.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Have they run out of men to complain about Octopuses Personalities now! I guess disparate women calls for creative solutions ;-)
Seahorses
Seriously, how much did they spend researching this? Maybe they should've spent the money elsewhere...
Actually we vertebrates have four or five limbs... depending on the chromosomes... ;--)
Some of these guys/gals have way more than eight limbs... yikes what the heck is that... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT1TSbarW1U.
Then there is this: http://xkcd.com/520.
How IS Norfolk this time of year?
Humanity has managed to achieve surprisingly lots of stuff without relying on writing.
History has examples of "Dark Age" during which the ability to write was lost :
- Homeric Greece - for example - had lost the habit to write in Linear and hadn't re-discovered alphabet from commercial contacts
- As far as I've read on the web, apparently greate native american nation have had mostly oral tradition with very little physical support
etc...
Writing isn't a prerequisite for cultural development. Oral tradition can be sufficient for some forms of civilisation.
On the other hand, once the need arise, writing systems are quickly (re)discovered by oral societies.
- either for accounting purpose once trading develops on an important scale
- or some religious traditions make it necessary (I personally have the impression that the more the religion plays an important part, the more graphic the symbols are like in mayan script or egyptian hieroglyph, and the more the trading plays an important part, the more the symbols get simple and fast to write/carve like cuneiform)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]