Cephalopod Passes Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children (sciencealert.com) 63
mi shares a report from ScienceAlert: The marshmallow test, or Stanford marshmallow experiment, is pretty straightforward. A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told, if they can manage not to eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they'll get a second marshmallow, and be allowed to eat both. This ability to delay gratification demonstrates cognitive abilities such as future planning, and it was originally conducted to study how human cognition develops; specifically, at what age a human is smart enough to delay gratification if it means a better outcome later.
Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them straight away. [...] The researchers found that all of the cuttlefish in the test condition decided to wait for their preferred food (the live shrimp), but didn't bother to do so in the control group, where they couldn't access it. "Cuttlefish in the present study were all able to wait for the better reward and tolerated delays for up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in large-brained vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots," the researchers said.
The other part of the experiment was to test how good the six cuttlefish were at learning. They were shown two different visual cues, a grey square and a white one. When they approached one, the other would be removed from the tank; if they made the "correct" choice, they would be rewarded with a snack. Once they had learnt to associate a square with a reward, the researchers switched the cues, so that the other square now became the reward cue. Interestingly, the cuttlefish that learnt to adapt to this change the quickest were also the cuttlefish that were able to wait longer for the shrimp reward. The team's research has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them straight away. [...] The researchers found that all of the cuttlefish in the test condition decided to wait for their preferred food (the live shrimp), but didn't bother to do so in the control group, where they couldn't access it. "Cuttlefish in the present study were all able to wait for the better reward and tolerated delays for up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in large-brained vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots," the researchers said.
The other part of the experiment was to test how good the six cuttlefish were at learning. They were shown two different visual cues, a grey square and a white one. When they approached one, the other would be removed from the tank; if they made the "correct" choice, they would be rewarded with a snack. Once they had learnt to associate a square with a reward, the researchers switched the cues, so that the other square now became the reward cue. Interestingly, the cuttlefish that learnt to adapt to this change the quickest were also the cuttlefish that were able to wait longer for the shrimp reward. The team's research has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Timer training. (Score:2)
Cuttlefish learn about timers.
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*super-cool racing car chair.
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Re: SpaceX Starship detonates after landing (Score:1)
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Even if they didn't pass (Score:2)
Would they get a participation award?
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Would they get a participation award?
Well... If they didn't pass, they still ate the first (non-preferred) snack raw king prawn instead of waiting for the second (preferred) live grass shrimp, so yes.
Re: Even if they didn't pass (Score:3)
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The original research was shown to be BS because it was done by the usual wooly minded rigour challenged phycology researchers. [theguardian.com]
That article you linked says that the conclusion that children who passed the marshmallow test will go on to be more successful later in life is rubbish. I agree with what it says.
It doesn't say that the conclusion that the test indicates some complex thought processes is wrong. Nobody seems to be claiming that the cuttlefish who pass their version of the marshmallow test will go on to make six figures or anything. Just that they are clever. That seems in line with other anecdotal evidence about cuttlefis
but for me it was easy (Score:4, Funny)
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When I tried it a few weeks ago, I didn't eat any of the marshmallows. I couldn't wait to leave.
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I did this exact same experiment with gerbils (Score:2)
in the 60's. It took them about two tries until they got it.
Cognitive Reasoning vs. Behavior Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
This study is like comparing marshmallows to oranges. The cuttlefish have obviously been conditioned via reinforcement training to wait for the better food. When the experiment is performed on anything OTHER than a human (who has been told that they will get a better reward if they simply wait...a _cognitive exercise_), it's simply just another conditioning experiment via repetition. Sure, they'll figure out to wait, just like a rat in a cage can be trained to wait to pull a chain before the good food drops. There's no executive function on display here.
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Re:Cognitive Reasoning vs. Behavior Analysis (Score:5, Funny)
You should present this to the researchers.
Or you could give them a better explanation. But only after a suitable delay.
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You should present this to the researchers.
Or you could give them a better explanation. But only after a suitable delay.
+1 Funny
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+1 Funny
If you had waited to make that comment then he might have got to +5 funny. As it is, now I've posted so I can't mod any more.
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A fair point indeed.
My argument was that the "Marshmallow Test" in popular culture is a cognitive test of executive function. The kid gets one explanation of the rules and one shot to get it right. It's not a conditioning exercise. It's a yardstick of how advanced the kid is in their reasoning at a certain age, and a (wannabe?) predictor of their future intellectual success.
Yay for cuttlefish and their trainability. Perhaps one day we'll be able to speak their language and administer the "Marshmallow Test"
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Please describe how you would 'explain' the rules to the cuttlefish.
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It's not a conditioning exercise.
The conditioning exercise was teaching the children language.
Impulse control is still a factor even with conditioning. Some animals have very poor impulse control no matter how much conditioning they receive.
Cuttlefish apparently do not fit into this category. [xkcd.com]
Re:Cognitive Reasoning vs. Behavior Analysis (Score:4, Funny)
When the experiment is performed on anything OTHER than a human (who has been told that they will get a better reward if they simply wait...a _cognitive exercise_)
Not necessarily. Many humans are conditioned to believe anybody wearing a lab coat. That's how the drug commercials on TV work.
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Mod parent up!
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Re:Cognitive Reasoning vs. Behavior Analysis (Score:5, Informative)
You should read more about the study. They had three doors. One that would open immediately, one that would open after a delay, and one that would never open. All the doors were transparent so the cuttlefish could see the prize on the other side.
The cuttlefish ONLY waited when the door that would open after a delay held a tastier treat than the one that would open immediately. They ignored the door that never opened. They also ignored door #2 when it didn't have a more valuable prize.
So the training/conditioning was around getting them to recognize the rules of the three doors. Once that was established, THEN they used that training to communicate "If you choose not to eat what's behind door #1 you'll get what's behind door #2". By varying the prizes behind the doors they could tell when the cuttlefish was choosing to wait for the more valuable prize.
Re:Different experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Read the post directly above yours for an explanation of how the experiment worked, it's considerably more elegant than simple conditioning.
Cats (Score:5, Interesting)
My cats won’t touch their dry food if they think they might get canned food. And this not just a delay of 15 minutes. We are talking hours.
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My cats won’t touch their dry food if they think they might get canned food. And this not just a delay of 15 minutes. We are talking hours.
The same but sort of opposite (apparently some dry food is addictive). Cats are ambush predators, as octopuses can be, and will regularly spend ages waiting for a good opportunity and ignoring other distractions. I wonder if this points in the opposite direction and being an ambush predator leads to higher intelligence? Such predators need to decide when to attack in imperfect conditions and when to wait for their prey to come a little closer, which means they need to have a good model of how each type of
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... being an ambush predator leads to higher intelligence?
Actually, the better an animal can manipulate its environment, the more useful intelligence is.
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My dog did this at 4 months old already. Humans are sloooow.
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Your troll-fu is weak and laughable. Ha!
Tear down time (Score:2)
Better check to see what kind of underhanded, rotten crap they might have built into this test.
It wouldn't be the first time this was done to weed out 'undesirables', or those who don't fit a specific political agenda. :\
The marshmallow test is kinda dumb (Score:2)
The marshmallow test is kinda dumb, if the child was smart enough they would realize that they could just grab the whole bag of marshmallows when the tester steps out of the room and eat them all with no consequences whatsoever. Game theory 101, this is essentially an adaptation of the prisoner's dilemma.
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retarded take
Gluugsnergluug as the first squid on the moon ... (Score:1)
And so it begins: (Score:1)
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It has been well documented [xkcd.com] before.
Re:What a horrible bullshit test. (Score:5, Insightful)
One being able to plan ahead has NOTHING to do with one's ability to suffer now for future gratification.
It's simply a function of if the child has had enough factors in its life that gave it enough resilience to stand a bit of suffering without suffering from it!
This question was studied in follow-up tests, and it was found that the results seemed to be a mixture between "delayed gratification" and "socioeconomic factors". The original experiment wasn't actually making the leap to "able to plan ahead", it simply measured the correlation between waiting for the better reward and better life outcomes (as measured by better academic success and health).
(E.g. did they check if the kid alread had marshmallows before, or does not like gelatinous drug cubes, or could get a ton of them in the car back home? I know I certainly didn't like them as a kid. It's like chewing on a cross between grandma's artificial tit and a piece of fatback, except it's excesively sweet too and hurts your teeth later.)
In a word, yes, the researchers were not stupid. They factored in things such as the kid not liking marshmallows (hint: that's just the name given to the experiment. Do you think the researchers in the study being discussed in this thread were also feeding these cuttlefish marshmallows??).
You should read the original and follow up research on the Standford Marshmallow Experiment.... and then comment on its potential failings.
As for the cuttlefish experiment, I'm not sure the researchers are making the leap to cuttlefish having the cognitive abilities of a child, which is what the "science" reporting seems to be attempting to imply because it gets clicks. The researchers simply show that the cuttlefish have the ability to wait for a better food option. Interesting mostly because some animals do and some animals so not.
Re: What a horrible bullshit test. (Score:2)
I'm glad for this test (Score:3)
I only want to eat stupid octopuses, they taste better.
Quarter earnings vs. long term plan (Score:2)
You can argue about the validity of the experiment all you like, it still looks like the squids would outperform most CEOs out there.
iHumans are devolving (Score:1)
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Vive le cuttlefish (Score:3)
We need to elect more cuttlefish to Congress.
let me know when it passes a Turing test (Score:2)
How many... (Score:1)