Cognition: Human vs Non-human Animal

The article's authors use "conscious" to mean self-aware, not volitional, so far as I can tell. I can't say I understand their argument.

Jordan

Post 121

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 12:58pm

But animals are NOT self-aware - just humans... they ARE aware, but not of the self as a distinctness...

Post 122

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 6:25pm

There are plenty of studies about animals having a distinct sense of self, but I'll leave that can of (non-self-aware) worms alone.

Jordan

Post 123

Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - 8:38pm

Here is a link to the abstract of a study that discovered that chimps don't hold grudges:

Theft in an ultimatum game: chimpanzees and bonobos are insensitive to unfairness.

Actually, I overstated the case. Reptiles, lacking the requisite brain structures, do not hold grudges (if you smash a mother-reptile's eggs, she will not hold it against you). Chimps probably do hold some kind of a crude grudge under certain circumstances. The study mentions the Ultimatum Game. Here's a rundown of it:

A windfall or stipend is presented to both you and the person who is playing Ultimatum with you (you are cohorts). One of you is the proposer, and the other one is the responder (which can be reversed back and forth). In the iterated version, several consecutive rounds are played. This makes it like real life, where we repeatedly solicit time, energy, attention, money, praise, etc. from each other by offering some of the same back to the others. It starts with a certain dollar amount, and then you see if you can both agree on the allocation.

If the windfall for each round is $100, and the proposer makes the offer to split it 50/50 ($50 to each player), then the responder almost always accepts. However, sometimes the proposer tries to be "greedy" -- and offers as little as a 90/10 split ($90 to the proposer; $10 to the responder). In such cases, the responder often rejects the offer (which, in this game, kills the whole deal) -- and then no one gets any money from that round. It was already known that chimps don't reject offers (no matter how "unfair"). What this study found is that chimps won't even reject unfair offers from a known thief! In other words, chimps don't make (moral) character judgments.

Which is slightly different from not holding any grudges.

Ed

[Note: I can't seem to stay off of the thin ice on this topic!]

:-)

Post 124

Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 7:59am

I question the validity of the results based on there being an absence of hillbilly chimp participants. :-)

I'm joking, of course, but it makes me wonder if chimps can be taught to hold grudges (or to make character judgements) or if the behavior can be bred into them. Or inbred into them, as the case may be.

Post 125

Friday, August 24, 2012 - 7:24pm

Deanna,

I'm joking, of course, but it makes me wonder if chimps can be taught to hold grudges (or to make character judgements) or if the behavior can be bred into them.

I'm in that camp of thinkers who would answer: No (that these achievements could not be realized).

Of course, there is the nagging reality hanging over my head that, over the course of 6 million years or so -- from the time of the 'common ancestor' of both apes and humans -- that we humans eventually did realize these achievements in ourselves through naturally-selected "breeding." In short, by the time you bred a line of chimps so that they would begin to make (moral) character judgments -- by that time: they'd have turned into bona fide humans. The question becomes not so much about whether it can be done or not, but about how long it'd take to do it (and whether the subject would remain a member of the same species in the process). So, let me make a minor qualification:

With 6 million years of selective breeding (and maybe with just 3 million years if we are really smart about it), you could breed the ability to make character judgments into a current line of chimpanzees.

:-)

Ed

Post 126

Saturday, August 25, 2012 - 11:24am

Great thread!

Saturday, August 25, 2012 - 12:20pm

Jules!

Where have you been, my Man? I have been missing you.

Ed

Post 128

Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 1:17am

Ed, would you happen to know if Dolphins have any conceptual ability.

I wonder what you think of this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17116882

Post 129

Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 9:15am

Michael,

Thanks for presenting that evidence. Let's leave aside the entailed conundrum of legal fights against rights violations of the 80 species of cetaceans, or even of the 67 species of toothed whales, dophins, and porpoises (or is it: porpoii?). Let's leave aside who would be arguing on behalf of the cetaceans, and who would be sued (barges, fishermen, oilmen, luxury cruiselines, the US Navy, etc.) -- and the mess and the economic stagnation that would come from all of that. Instead, let's just focus on evidence interpretation. As stated in your link, it has been said by so-called "experts" that a dolphin is a nonhuman "person." Even a killer whale, on this view, is a nonhuman "person." The reason given for why these beings ought to be categorized as "persons" is because they are -- as is stated in your link -- "sufficiently intelligent." Let's check that premise.

Below I present a single study on each species (actually, I merely present the abstracts of the studies):

1) Dolphins (Out of sight means out of mind: evidence of extremely limited consciousness)
=============================
What do dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) understand about hidden objects?

Object permanence, the ability to mentally represent and reason about objects that have disappeared from view, is a fundamental cognitive skill that has been extensively studied in human infants and terrestrial animals, but not in marine animals. A series of four experiments examined this ability in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). After being trained on a "find the object" game, dolphins were tested on visible and invisible displacement tasks, and transpositions. In Experiments 1 and 2, dolphins succeeded at visible displacements, but not at invisible displacements or transpositions. Experiment 3 showed that they were able to pass an invisible displacement task in which a person's hand rather than a container was used as the displacement device. However, follow-up controls suggested they did so by learning local rules rather than via a true representation of the movement of hidden objects. Experiment 4 demonstrated that the dolphins did not rely on such local rules to pass visible displacement tasks. Thus, like many terrestrial animals, dolphins are able to succeed on visible displacement tasks, but seem unable to succeed on tasks requiring the tracking of hidden objects.
=============================
Recap:
What these researchers discovered is that dolphins are not very smart. One of the things that a "very smart" animal would be able to do is to track a hidden object. For instance, take a human toddler (i.e., a "very smart" animal) and put them through a very basic and rudimentary "shell game": Show that toddler a ball, then place the ball in one of 2 boxes, and then, in full view of the toddler, switch the relative positions of the 2 boxes -- and then tell the toddler to find the ball. The toddler will remember which of the 2 boxes you had put the ball into, and will be cognizant of the fact that you moved that box into the original position of the other, presumably-empty box. They will immediately search the correct box (for the ball).

Dolphins can't do that.

2) Killer Whales (Mediocre "monkey see, monkey do" rote learners)
=============================
Experimental evidence for action imitation in killer whales (Orcinus orca).

Comparative experimental studies of imitative learning have focused mainly on primates and birds. However, cetaceans are promising candidates to display imitative learning as they have evolved in socioecological settings that have selected for large brains, complex sociality, and coordinated predatory tactics. Here we tested imitative learning in killer whales, Orcinus orca. We used a 'do-as-other-does' paradigm in which 3 subjects witnessed a conspecific demonstrator's performance that included 15 familiar and 4 novel behaviours. The three subjects (1) learned the copy command signal 'Do that' very quickly, that is, 20 trials on average; (2) copied 100 % of the demonstrator's familiar and novel actions; (3) achieved full matches in the first attempt for 8-13 familiar behaviours (out of 15) and for the 2 novel behaviours (out of 2) in one subject; and (4) took no longer than 8 trials to accurately copy any familiar behaviour, and no longer than 16 trials to copy any novel behaviour. This study provides experimental evidence for body imitation, including production imitation, in killer whales that is comparable to that observed in dolphins tested under similar conditions. These findings suggest that imitative learning may underpin some of the group-specific traditions reported in killer whales in the field.
=============================
Recap:
What these researchers discovered is that killer whales are not very smart. One of the things that a "very smart" animal would be able to do is to imitate a familiar behavior in less than 8 trials. Again, let's look at human toddlers ("very smart" animals). Here is a list of 15 behaviors that are familiar to toddlers:

1) a single hand-clap (bringing both hands together out in front of you)
2) a foot stomp
3) shaking your head "no"
4) nodding your head "yes"
5) speaking the word "ball"
6) raising one arm over your head
7) raising both arms over your head
8) scratching your head
9) rubbing your tummy
10) putting your hands on your hips
11) crouching down
12) laying on the floor
13) crawling
14) walking
15) putting a piece of candy in your mouth

Now, what would you say if you tested 3 human toddlers and found that they took as much as 8 attempts to accurately copy any of these tasks? You would sign up that kid for psychiatric/developmental testing. That's because very smart animals (e.g., human toddlers) should not require 8 attempts to copy a familiar behavior -- it is out of the norm of what "very smart" means. Keep in mind that the motor behavior of toddlers is still in the development stage (where concentration, rather than "motor memory" needs to be employed). This is not true of the killer whales, who have a motor-development advantage over the toddlers -- and yet the toddlers would still outperform the killer whales by a long-shot.

So I don't think that cetaceans are "sufficiently intelligent." If you want to argue that they deserve individual rights like humans, then you have to use something other than "sufficient intelligence" as a premise leading to that conclusion.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/26, 9:22am)

Post 130

Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 9:51am

Humans do not display the type of object permanence skills you describe, Ed, until about 18 months of age (according to Piaget). Up until that point, it can be argued that humans and dolphins are equals in that skill category. Does this mean that humans less than 18 months old are also not sufficiently intelligent for personhood? Or is it the potential to develop the skill that is important? Also, a human suffering from a cognitive development disorder may never master this skill. Does that human surrender her personhood based on the absence of this skill? Or is it that this particular skill is only one of many factors that should be considered when determining personhood?

Disclaimer: I am playing Devil's Advocate only. I am not truly in agreement with the notion of dolphins as persons and do not wish to grant them any rights thereof.

Post 131

Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 12:47pm

Dear Ms. Delancey,

Renee Baillargeon has done any number of studies to show that there are cognitive understandings of the world that go beyond what you'd expect from Piaget's motor-sensory stage. She shows that a very young infant pays no extra attention to a box on a platform, a box next to the edge of the platform, or a box that appears to be off the platform and suspended in mid-air. But a slightly older infant is astounded by the box appearing to hover in the air. There are laws of physics that relate to a babies experiential world that they appear astonished to see in apparent violation. She has done a lot of work an infants in intuitive awareness of physical laws such as solidity, containment, and occlusion.

These kinds of experiments are telling us that infants can and do grasp things that our understanding of Piaget would not have led us to believe. It is bringing into question for some scientists our belief in stages as the best descriptor for development.

I think we underestimate all that must be learned as prerequisites of purposeful, self-aware rational thought - and that is far beyond just the functional representation of the external world as when a dog trots down the sidewalk and veers to one side or another to avoid running into a pole. (And that doesn't even begin to get into abstract moral reasoning)

Personhood is a rather loose term. In the moral and legal realm I'd rather the discussion be about when in the course of development do individual rights attach.

And the best way to avoid another confusion is to keep in focus the difference between human nature (from whence rights originate) and the individual human who may or may not be capable of exercising their rational faculty. That the entity is an individual human being means they participate in individual rights even if they are in a comma or are developmentally disadvantaged. In other words, a person can have the rational faculty by virtue of being human, but not be able to exercise it. I don't surrender my rights (or my personhood, or my nature as a human) when I am asleep.

I think we need to better job at defining the aspects of human nature that are common to the cognitive development of humans-as-such before we can try to use stages, like Piaget's to remark on intelligence. Piaget held that schema were formed to assimilate experiences - a kind of generalization. Thumbs, nipples, corners of blankets are all discovered to be suckable objects. When something is an object, but the shape won't lend itself to sucking then a new schema has to be developed. It is in that process that we should look for the unique human form of creativity - making a new category, imagining it, examining it, testing it, and then acting on it. It is purpose driven, flexible, creation of what is like an implicit, non-self-aware abstraction by which we will integrate new experiences. Generalizing this process is what we need to do for an intelligible understanding of human and non-human intelligence - at least that's my two cents on this topic.

Post 132

Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 4:30pm

Deanna,

Good questions. I think Steve gave a good answer to them, but I wanted to share some research, too. You wrote:

Humans do not display the type of object permanence skills you describe, Ed, until about 18 months of age (according to Piaget).

But, like Steve said, Piaget was probably wrong (or at least 'insufficiently correct'). Here is evidence that 6-, 9-, and 10-month olds have an increasing capacity to adjust behavior based on the mental cognition of object permanence:

6-month-olds and the "stare" factor

Piaget proposed that understanding permanency, understanding occlusion events, and forming mental representations were synonymous; however, accumulating evidence indicates that those concepts are not unified in development. Infants reach for endarkened objects at younger ages than for occluded objects, and infants' looking patterns suggest that they expect occluded objects to reappear at younger ages than they reach for them. We reaffirm the latter finding in 5- to 6-month-olds and find similar responses to faded objects, but we fail to find that pattern in response to endarkened objects.

--Object permanence and method of disappearance: looking measures further contradict reaching measures [abstract]

The study above shows that while 6-month-old infants won't necessarily reach for occluded objects, they still stare longer at those times where there is just empty space (when the occluding material is removed to reveal that the object has disappeared), than they do at those times where there is a remaining object (when the occluding material is removed to reveal that the object is still there).

Nutritional iron status matters

In the A-not-B task,21 the examiner hides a toy in 1 of 2 locations. Object permanence, the Piagetian task most strongly related to later IQ,22 is administered to determine whether the infant can retrieve the toy from the location where it is hidden.23 In subsequent trials, the examiner distracts the infant for 3 seconds after hiding the toy. When the infant succeeds in retrieving the toy 3 times, the examiner increases the length of the delay by 2 seconds, to a maximum of 11 seconds. Performance is assessed in terms of the longest delay at which the infant succeeds in retrieving the toy and perseverative errors, the percentage of trials during which the infant continues to search on the incorrect side. ...

At 9 to 10 months of age, the infants with [iron-deficiency anemia] were significantly less likely to exhibit object permanence ... . The threshold for this effect was between the [iron-deficiency anemia] and all infants without anemia; only 64.3% of the former passed object permanence, compared with 87.8% of the latter ...

--Iron deficiency anemia and cognitive function in infancy. [full text]

The study above shows that up to about 89% of iron-sufficient 9-10 month-olds can pass an A-not-B task test for object permanence -- while only about 64% of same-aged infants who are iron-deficient can do the same.

Auditory cues really helped 10-month olds ascertain an object's permanence

Results showed that 8.75-month-old infants solved partial occlusions by removing the occluder and uncovering the object, but these same infants failed to use this skill on total occlusions. Experiment 2 used sound-producing objects to provide a perceptual clue to the objects' hidden location. Sound clues significantly increased the success rate on total occlusions for 10-month-olds, but not for 8.75-month-olds.

--Factors affecting infants' manual search for occluded objects and the genesis of object permanence. [full text]

The study above shows that infants as old as 8.75 months may often fail an occlusion test for object permanence, but that 10-month-old infants may do better at the test -- and especially so when it includes auditory cues.

Ed

Post 133

Monday, August 27, 2012 - 11:16am