
The Surprising Complexity of Animal Memories - mykowebhn
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/06/surprising-complexity-animal-memories/589420/
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RappingBoomer
"Psychologists once locked an ape in a room, for which they had arranged only
four ways of escaping. Then they spied on him to see which of the four he
would find.

The ape escaped a fifth way."

-robert a heinlein

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agumonkey
Some documentaries also showed how monkeys would cooperate to solve a random
problem. One I remember involved grabbing two different ropes to actuate a
door. It took them half a second to organize try a few things and settle on
each side to open the door. I don't think we would have done better out of the
blue.

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stevenwoo
One thing I've never seen discussed is how the behavior tests eliminate sense
of smell (or some other sensory input that is different/better in the test
subject versus humans) as a possible tool used by animals - several of the
tests they discussed seemed like they could be explained by the test subject
smelling what is the situation rather than reasoning.

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ggm
A good point but to assume it applies to all tests and invalidates the
metaconcept might be too strong. It would not be hard to wipe both with fruit
beforehand or wipe handles with alcohol etc. So I assume within the discipline
well formed experimental setups account for this because it's too easy to do,
to ignore. The corvid waxworm experiment for instance is a choice between two
foods not one food and none, and crucially the birds don't even bother testing
the caches of insects which have aged out. Yes birds have a good sense of
smell but I think this tends to a marginal issue in the experiment not a
deciding factor.

