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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.
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.
"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...
Actually, I'd have to disagree with the assessment of no personality in octopuses. I had a common octopus (octopus vulgaris) as a pet (her name was Cephus, short for cephalopod) for almost two years and she most absolutely displayed a personality completely different from another octopus that I had as a pet for about a year.
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But whether you'll observe consistent responses to stimuli will depend on whether you're (a) measuring the right responses and (b) using the right stimuli. In this case, the stimuli were video images. Other researchers have found personality differences when using real stimuli. Maybe there is something about video stimuli that overwhelms individual differences?
And ms.Pronk does not seem to realise that even PAL has a field rate of 50Hz, not 25 (and on many new flatscreens that is horrible redisplayed at 60hz..)
Field rate is what atters when it comes to seeing refreshed motion, so if they can easily see issues in PAL, they will also see issues in wither 50i or 50p 'HDTV' signals.
So, its either a resolution issue, or more likely an error in measurement.
Of course the reason most home 'hunting' animals (dogs, cats) dont react much to tv is that they have excellent depth perception, so the flat screen is obviously false to them.
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 ]
- Absolutely!
My wife keeps salt water tanks and we had an Octopus named Oglebbie. Oglebbie was such a sweetie. (I'm calling her a female, but that is an assumption.)
We had what can only be called the classic love affair - doomed from the start..
It started with small touching with fingers/arms. It was routine - every day a few times I would put my octopus-looking hand in and she would embrace. And Pull - she wanted me to stay.
They have a very sharp beak BTW. Only try this if you are willing to get bit. She never bit me.
It was definitely love. As soon as I turned on the light she would shoot across the tank to the top door area, and I would open it .. verbally complaining at the time about never get rest.. and Oglebbie would inflate herself with water and climb out to travel across the top of tank to play.
After a sort time (few minutes) she would go back to the door and if I went over there she would shoot the water at my general direction, then dive in.
Tragic love.. She would dream of us romping across reefs, and having fun. I would want to go running through fields of flowers with her ...
One day she lost all her zing. My wife was away and I didn't keep the water level up.. the salt concentration went too high. She didn't die but she lingered, and didn't want to play - which was more torturous for me because she was there.. but not there. And it was my fault.
Thank you for sharing - I'm still getting over it.. (I really did feel terrible - and the way she seemed to haunt the tank - a fraction of her was left. It's like how your non-nerdy spouse see you when you are coding - but permanent.
Despite the fact you very well maybe right, a pet owner is more likely to humanize their pet then anyone else. People are notorious for anthropomorphizing things, like cars... so a definitive study on personality would be important. Also, does life span have any effect on personality? Do mice have personalities as much as cats? It seems logical that shorter lived creatures wouldn't have as much time to develop them, having less environmental stimuli, less memories, so they'd need to inherit reasoning skills. But I also have the feeling I may be quite wrong.
But seriously, what's up with the "Miss?" Whiteox seems to be parroting it from the Herald article. Last time I checked, we were living in the 21st century. She's presumably a PhD, so either "Dr." or "Ms." would be fine. (In academia there tends to be a kind of reverse snobbery about that. If you look at the listing of faculty at a snobby place like Berkeley, it's all "Mr." and "Ms.," because of course everybody has a PhD. At a community college it's more common to see the "Dr." for people who have PhDs.) I can't remember ever seeing a female academic in the US referred to as "Miss." Not in writing, not in speech. Is this more common in Australia, or is the author of the Herald piece the type of crotchety 95-year-old guy who smokes a pipe, wears suspenders, and uses "Miss" for any female who doesn't remember the Depression?
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While we are all entitled to state our opinions, I'd tend to value a scientific study involving 32 subjects over your two-subject anecdotal observation of pets.
That doesn't mean your wrong, but her evidence seems stronger.
Would it help to say that IAANS (I am a neuroscientist)?
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Thanks for the story.
Cephus died of old age thankfully and I will say that she exhibited many of the same qualities, including a sense of humor or ability to get people to pay attention to her as she would shoot water out of the tank if she wanted attention. She also snuck out of the tank on more than one occasion to steal fish out of the feeder tank across the table from her own aquarium (which necessitated a large, heavy pot to be placed on top of the tank to prevent that sort of behavior.
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What do you mean she lingered? Just dying slowly? Did the salt concentration cause some physical problem with her or was she "angry" at you?
I've had pet rabbits who had very distinct opinions about stuff upon first exposure. One, confronted with the TV, immediately would sit and watch it... as long as it was a science fiction show. Otherwise he'd soon get bored and ignore it. (I never did quite figure out how he differentiated them or what the appeal was to him.) Another couldn't care less and would watch anything on TV, while laying in his little hammock.
Scifi bunny couldn't care less about music, if I put any on he would look at the speakers for a moment and then go about his business. Couch potato bunny loved classical music but would get very annoyed and stomp around in his cage if I played rock.
Apparently you've never seen my Golden Retriever plan a heist. He's capable of a remarkable level of fore-thought, at least as much as I would give any two or three year old child credit for. He's learned to open "child-proof" trash cans, escape from no-roofed enclosures, and figured out the door knobs we used to have in New Orleans (they were the "handle" variety rather than the "knob" variety so he didn't need hands). He's also self aware and communicative to the point of being able to "talk" to us. If you ask him what he wants he'll show you. Granted 5 times out of 10 he wants food or a treat, but he's developed a vocabulary of wants. He can show you his food bowl, his water being low, his leash, the back door (he can separately tell you the he wants to "go out" to use the bathroom, or "walk" for entertainment), his toys, or even the couch (he sleeps on the couch at night and when my wife and I are in "his bed" to late he gets annoyed). He's also adjusted this vocabulary across three different homes without ever missing a beat. Ironically, we're currently living in an apartment and have to walk them every time they go out (no fenced yard). He still communicates "out" by going to the back door (which leads to a small porch he rarely ever goes out on), and "walk" with his leash. The "walks" are now trips to the park for a longer exercise.
Now our other dog, while she has a personality, doesn't display anywhere near the retriever's level of self awareness or fore-thought. She'll take advantage of his more successful plots when the opportunity arises, but left to herself would never be able to communicated her desires or plan food grabs. She's capable of basic communications and we usually know what she wants or needs, but she doesn't display anywhere near the retriever's vocabulary or nor his apparent understanding of "conversation".
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Perhaps the variation in dogs that we are seeing (besides the obvious variation, the same as in people), is the emergence of a higher level of intelligence in the species as a whole?
I wish you were right, but unfortunately I'd bet it's the other way around - it's not the emergence of intelligence that is causing the variability, but the opposite.
Wolves are very smart, and dogs of the past had to work for living, with many of their jobs requiring a degree of intelligence, but nowadays they're being bred for variety of reasons, most of which no longer have anything to do with intelligence, but all sort of cute and useless traits people deem as desirable. That means intelligence is no longer being selected for, and on the whole dogs are becoming dumber by the minute - but occasionally you'll get a throwback and much more intelligent dog such as the ones described here.