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Chimps Have a Built-In GPS
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Mar 24, 2009 04:22 PM
from the please-return-to-the-highlighted-route dept.
from the please-return-to-the-highlighted-route dept.
destinyland writes "European researchers have discovered that chimpanzees have a built-in mental GPS, keeping 'a geometric mental map of their home range, moving from point to point in nearly straight lines.' Using GPS, two primatologists followed 15 chimpanzees for 217 days, and determined that the apes were 'using a mental map built around geometric coordinates.' They're not just identifying landmarks in their surroundings, and in fact, even when swinging through trees, the chimps planned out their route several trees in advance. Here's the paper in the journal Animal Behavior."
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Pay per Paper (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:4, Insightful)
$31.50 is pretty expensive for a paper which will say that a certain mammal can remember where it has been and can find its way back to that spot, much like most other mammals.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear ya.
I guess myself and most of my friends have built in GPS too. I mean, we can go to a bar, have drinks, and somehow, we all make it back to our homes and wake up in bed. Magic!!
Back in the old days....I used to call it 'autopilot', get in the car and it drives itself home.
Nowdays, I guess it is called built in GPS.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How do evolutionists explain this?
By investigating the detailed empirical facts of the species in question, including genetic histories of specific species, relations between species sharing similar abilities, physiological and neurological studies of the guidance process in different species, hormonal studies of the seasonal triggers for migration in different species, and careful field observation of bird behaviour, including quantitative estimation of rates and kinds of navigational failure, in different
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Create pay per paper site
2. Get shitty story submitted by kdawson
3. Massive profit
Parent
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:4, Insightful)
So the real question is... how do I filter kdawson out of my RSS feed?
Parent
Re:Pay per Paper (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly most research is behind a paywall. It doesn't make it a slashvertisment though - there was enough detail in the linked article to see that the researchers are talking bollocks, and that the actual paper is unnecessary.
GPS uses time of flight between known landmarks. The fact that the landmarks are actually moving in orbit is irrelevant. The researchers argue that chimps don't use landmarks as reference points, but instead use a geometric layout of their territory. This is called dead-reckoning.
Edit: Preview suggests that I may be a little harsh. Their research itself may be valid and worthy. But their attempt to dumb it down for "the kids" without understanding the comparison that they are making is stupid.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They didn't "dumb it down", they hyped it up.
"Animals with built-in GPS!! Planet facing imminent destruction!! More at 11."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
After reading that article, I went the extra mile to dig up the original research paper, because I thought it would make it more authoritative.
Except... (Score:2)
... in Texas [slashdot.org]!
Built-In Mental GPS (Score:3, Funny)
Does it run Linux?
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft Sues Chimps.
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft Sues Chimps.
You really think they'll sue themselves?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Does it run Linux?
Are you asking on behalf of Microsoft?
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:4, Funny)
Does it run Linux?
I hear it's Gutsy Gibbon.
buh-duh... ching
Parent
Re:Built-In Mental GPS (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine a bonobo cluster of those!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine a bonobo cluster of those!
Bonobos do activities in clusters, but that activity ain't GPS...though it does involve positioning.
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
*apologizes for sarcastic rant*
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
The last time the chimp community lost GPS signals they all started crashing into each other and exploding. It was a real tragedy.
Rumour has it Microsoft's Ballmer was repeatedly spotted running into walls and throwing chairs.
Parent
Isn't that just... (Score:5, Insightful)
...a fancy way of saying "remembering where stuff is relative to other stuff"?
My cat can do that. If she wants to come upstairs in my house, she'll walk in a straight line to the bottom of the staircase from wherever she is, up the stairs, and in a straight line from there to wherever she wants to be.
I guess she's got "cat GPS" and/or is "using internal distance transform maps"... I never knew she was so talented.
I would think most semi-complex animals have this ability.
Parent
Re:Isn't that just... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I have a completely blind cat, and she gets around the house just fine, only running into stuff if I move furniture. It's really impressive to see, as she learns her environment the first time around. This article wasn't news to me.
Parent
Re:Isn't that just... (Score:5, Funny)
The animal had gone to the back of the house, climbed to the upper story and come into the house through a little window high in the shower cubicle of the upstairs bathroom. Then it walked back down the stairs and into our room.
Of course it has a map. What it doesn't know is that I am going to strangle it if it keeps pulling tricks like that.
Parent
Re:Isn't that just... (Score:5, Funny)
No, that's far too much effort. What actually happened was the cat read your mind, realised that you knew a plausible route by which it could get in, and so after being put out it just sat comfortably until you were out of sight and then teleported back onto your bed, knowing that you would never suspect anything.
Cats put the kind of effort into being lazy that the most hardened work ethic afficionado could only dream of.
Parent
It's dead reckoning . . . (Score:5, Funny)
...a fancy way of saying "remembering where stuff is relative to other stuff"?
Yeah, I was thinking that this is just a bit of "dead reckoning," combined with old salty pirate skills:
"Arrrgh, when yee see the rock, that looks like the skull of a monkey, turn left, take twenty paces, and the treasure is buried below. But beware the curse . . ."
I guess she's got "cat GPS" and/or is "using internal distance transform maps"...
Just to be on the safe side, see if your cat can perform the same trick, while wearing a tinfoil hat. And please get back to us if she can. Maybe those felines are up to something behind our backs.
Parent
JPS (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Well, (Score:2)
duh.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
THere's no way i'm having a chimp on my dashboard (Score:5, Funny)
What does the G in GPS stand for (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. Drop them somewhere they've never been before and ask them to go somewhere else they've never been before and they'll either pull funny faces at you or initiate a poo barrage.
Tell me again, what does the G in GPS stand for? It sure doesn't stand for "having a reasonable memory of your surroundings and a rough sense of direction". And neither do the P or the S.
Bullshit summary again. Or maybe bullshit article. Who cares? After a while, you don't bother.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are taking their analogy far too literally. The chimps (apparently) appear to use at the least a coordinate like system of navigation. The GPS analogy works here as we humans use a coordinate system (via GPS) to navigate on occasion. It probably doesn't work globally for the chimps as their coordinate system would be localized to their territory.
Researchers used GPS; Chimps Mapped (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah - TFA says the chimps kept mental maps of their surroundings, and it was the researchers that used GPS because it all looked like jungle to them. That's different from migratory birds or insects which apparently use magnetic fields or sunlight angles for navigation.
Parent
Re:What does the G in GPS stand for (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's just that people writing these summaries and/or articles haven't the faintest clue how GPS operates. It's just a magical box on their dashboard that can figure out a route from A to B, so when <other creature/object X> can plan a route from one point to another, it must be similar, right?
Parent
Re:What does the G in GPS stand for (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just what GPS stands for, either. Not every positioning system that works globally is GPS. Yeah, I'm being pedantic, but "GPS" really is supposed to indicate the particular system, not just any system.
So saying chimps have built-in GPS because they can navigate is a little like saying they have built-in Canon Powershot cameras because they can see.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Bullshit summary. Article just said that researchers used GPS to keep track of where they were while following the chimps around. I'm going to have to see if I can just filter out kdawson's articles.
Chimp Satellites (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is why they will become our overlords. (Score:2)
So does Commander Taco... (Score:3, Funny)
People have this too. (Score:2)
People have this too - although it has to be trained. Most of our extra senses are so underused, that we need to kickstart them somehow, before we become consciously aware of them.
http://hackaday.com/2009/02/05/haptic-compass/ [hackaday.com]
After using his vibrating belt for a while, he knew exactly where he was and what direction he was going, even with it taken off.
Brains are amazing. If you provide them with more info, they figure out how to use it.
Devolution (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It probably has something to do with our chimp cousins living in an environment that requires more day-to-day use of navigation. Survival might require remembering that there are predators or chimps you don't get along with in area A, or knowing that you better be careful in area B because you've fallen several times after grabbing rotten or slippery branches/vines there.
Your ex-girlfriends probably didn't have any reason to attach negative survival consequence to getting lost on a short walk, so not much
Little Red (Assed) Riding Hood (Score:2)
chimpanzees have a built-in mental GPS
"All the better to eat your face and hands off with my dear!"
Yes, chimps are dirty, vicious, murdering animals who will eat your face and hands.
Now with GPS!
Good drivers, maybe...no GPS (Score:2)
Only the Male Ones... (Score:2)
(Sorry, had to be said)
Does this mean (Score:3, Interesting)
With this built-in GPS, would chimp-mounted lasers be more accurate than shark-mounted ones?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With this built-in GPS, would chimp-mounted lasers be more accurate than shark-mounted ones?
Yes, but the chimps tend to drown when you throw them in the water. Something about their density and not having gills.
I already knew this (Score:3, Funny)
This doesn't surprise me one bit (Score:3, Insightful)
My daughter is 19 months old. Almost as soon as she could walk at 13 months she was navigating the house on her own. She knew how to get back to her room from the kitchen, three doors, two rooms and a hallway away. Heck, she couldn't even open the doors on her own, but she sure could toddle over to them and squeak until we did it for her. :)
It's not like we taught her how to remember 2d layouts and navigate them. She just did it.
She's my first kid, and I'm learning more about intelligence and learning from watching her than I ever did in all of my AI classes.
Another example: she loves sitting in the driver's seat of our car, playing with the steering wheel and the keys. The first time she did it she was holding the keys in her left hand, but the ignition is on the right side of the steering column. She tried reaching over to put the keys in, but immediately realized she couldn't reach, so she switched the keys to her right hand. Do you know how difficult it would be to code up that kind of coordination and reasoning process in a robot? Frikkin' hard! But she just did it.
It's helped me realize just how much behavior and intelligence is hard coded in our brains. There's a lot that my wife and I are teaching my daughter, but there's no way we could have taught her everything she now knows, and I seriously doubt she's figured it all out by mimicry. (Especially the complex skills and problem solving behavior.) So the idea that a primate could have a "built in" mental mapping ability makes perfect sense now that I've seen such a thing in action.