Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV 482
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.
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did anyone read that as HGTV? (Score:5, Insightful)
Best Headline Ever (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:0, Insightful)
Laughing and crying are actions, not personalities.
Re:and why would they exhibit personality in a lab (Score:2, Insightful)
if, they feel they are in immediate danger of their lives, they even may not exhibit those traits for years to come at all.
dogs and horses are pets. they are of the breeds that are accustomed to being with man. most of them are already offspring of other pets, and born within the care of humans, or live near them. they do not see them as an immediate threat.
YET, even any dog, cat that has been born stray, or has been stray for a long time does not immediately start to exhibit his/her personal traits right away, when you take them into your home and even feed them, until they feel they are safe.
Maturity? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I wouldn't pass judgement on octopus personality until somebody compares younger octopuses to older ones.
Re:Personality (Score:4, Insightful)
It is interesting that the octopi have quite a different perception of reality than we are accustomed to. If you imagine the divergent paths that evolution may have taken on different planets throughout the galaxy you can have an introduction to the challenges we face as a species if we ever were to encounter a truly alien life form.
Our models of intelligence, perception and personality are limited by our very narrow ideas based upon our feeble attempts to understand each other. We define ourselves as the "most intelligent" and "most social" creatures on our own planet. If we were to meet the seven armed trindoc from Beta Centauri (thank you Larry Niven) we may fail to recognize something that is superior to ourselves.
A Buddhist monk sitting in contemplation of the nature of the universe may appear to be comatose if we were a similarly handicapped species (as ourselves) coming to earth.
We need to enhance our understanding of every living species (or hive mind colony) on our own planet if we are to be anything more than space traveling, xenophobic rubes when we leave our own planet.
Re:Personality (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Personality (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, parent and I are both losing karma for this. We are getting modded up Funny (+0 Karma), and then getting modded down (-1 Redundant/Flamebait/Troll). So even though the resultant post scores are high, we are actually going backwards.
Meh, I have karma to burn
Re:Personality (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a Scandinavian word, so the correct plural form would be kraker.
"Form is a Latin word, so the correct singular form would be forma, with plural formae."
That's about how linguistically defensible your complaint was.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd refer you to the very rich literature on octopus behavior. Octopus have been estimated to be about as smart as dogs with surprisingly adept skills at problems solving and recognition.
If you'd say that dogs have no personality, I'd say you've never spent *any* time around animals.
Re:Personality (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to enhance our understanding of every living species (or hive mind colony) on our own planet if we are to be anything more than space traveling, xenophobic rubes when we leave our own planet.
After observing both human and octopus behavior, I believe there's simple common ground we could find with another long distance space-traveling species.
We're both going to be really hungry.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
There seem to be a *large* number of people who have convinced themselves that animals with the intelligecne of dogs or cats are non-sentient, and any personality or self awareness that they seem to exhibit is just the owners self-deception. I've seen smart and dumb cats, and smart and dumb dogs. There are certainly cats and dogs which seem to have no personality or mental model of the world, and act like simple stimulus-response system. There are also cats and dogs with clear personalities that interact with the world in a thoughtful manner.
I have to agree that those who say that self-awareness (or at least world-awareness, but it's hard to imagine a good mental model of the world that doesn't include oneself) is limited to humans simply haven't spent the time to know better.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Personality (Score:1, Insightful)
-1, irrelevant pedantry
Merriam-Webster says "kraken" is also an acceptable plural (similar to sheep or deer), so I'm assuming the -1 was about your own post. Misleading or uninformed also apply.
In English, we routinely hack up imported words either because most people have never been taught what is correct or because they are too lazy to remember. Because Latin and Greek were required in classical education, people were forced to care. If Spanish or Scandinavian were required courses, then we wouldn't hack up those languages either.
I didn't know the origin of "kraken", and found the parent interesting. It's probably not going to change the way monolingual English-speaking people use "kraken", but it is factual. You should respect that instead of flaming the poster.
Re:Tax dollars at work (Score:1, Insightful)
Is increased knowledge of our natural world not a wonderful thing?
Re:How could they... (Score:3, Insightful)
New Zealand Marmite is the One True Marmite - despite coming after the British Marmite.
You mean like how Leto Atreides became the Kwisatz Haderach, despite coming after Paul who couldn't cut it?
(Just a desperate attempt to get some geekyness back into slashdot...)
Re:Refresh rate (Score:2, Insightful)
If they are mixing CRT and LCD in their experiment and concluding it has to do with fps (which makes sense for a movie projector... but not a TV), then I think they need to do better research about how they are going to research.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, his anecdotal evidence (unless it is just a pack of lies) falsifies the scientist's report that they have no personalities.
This is not a tale of two conflicting stories, it is a falsifiable claim which has been falsified.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Personality (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, this for once is an occasion for the old saw about "absence of evidence".
Of course personality is not mere repetition, it is a pattern of characteristic responses to specific kinds of situations. As such an animal doesn't even need self-consciousness to have a personality. Nor need it be very intelligent.
Self-consciousness and high intelligence add a considerable wrinkle to personality: part of the "situation" an animal responds to is a a complex internal state that the animal is aware of. Which reminds me of a woman I once worked with. Some days she'd be very personable; occasionally she'd even surprise you by baking you cookies. Other days she'd chew you out if you walked too close to her desk. If she was always one way or the other, you could deal with it, but the thing was, you'd never know whether today was a Good Janet day or an Evil Janet day until you'd had your first interaction with her.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not a real geek. Get out of here you imposter!