5 ms·

Huh, I'm more surprised that most other animals can't do this...

trhway 9y ago
i don't think there is study saying other animals can't do this. There is also much to be said about successful construction of the study like the one in the article. As for example dogs studies show, dogs are more interested in other dog faces than human faces. And dogs are the animals who have the most contact with us. Even shelter dogs show less interest in human faces then the dogs who normally live with people. One can expect that other animals who have even less contact with people would have even less interest in human faces. They should have did this sheep experiment using photos of celebrity sheep - i think the results would be off the charts :) Anyway, studies on dog recognition of human faces (and dogs are very good at it, recognizing emotions, etc..) show that dogs pay much attention to eyes. Another clue here is that deep learning networks trained for human and animal faces contain a lot of eye and snout kernels in the internal layers - it seems that image processing by our brain as well as by DNNs is mostly edge based - edge means high spatial frequency and higher frequency means more informative signal - and snouts and eyes are high density edge clusters compare to the rest of face. That suggests that eyes is a key element in face recognition. The sheep looking at left or right profile photo of a face still see one of the eyes which were shown on the straight mugshot photo of the same face, and thus i think the sheep has enough info to recognize the face. Somebody running a human face recognition DNN can perform the same test using the DNN instead of a sheep and see which neuron paths would get activated. My bet is on eye kernels.
- Sniffnoy 9y ago
  The article says: > Humans and monkeys are the only other creatures known to do this from two-dimensional images. I have to assume they have at least tried it with other animals?
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    Publication bias could be a factor.
icantdrive55 9y ago
I imagine most animals could do this, but just aren't studied. True story coming up. I had an acquaintance go through a rough patch. She lost everything, and was basically homeless. She had two dogs--Ryder, and Cloe. She also had two African Grey parrots. The parrots knew the dogs since they were puppies. A breeder took care of her two parrots for 2.5 year--when she told him she was indigent. She got into section 8 housing, and had me go get her parrots. She was couch surfing for two, and a half years. I wheeled the cage into her apartment, and put the birds in the corner. One of her dogs walked up to the cage, and one of the parrots said, "Hello Ryder". The bird rembered the dogs, and their names. 2.5 years later. The bird knew the different names of the dogs. I couldn't rember their names. (A horrid neighbor turned her into section eight authorities for having dogs over 30 pounds. The dogs ended up being put down. I will never forget the bitch that couldn't just let an infraction slide. Sorry--telling this story brought up some bad memories. There are some terrible people in this world.)

i don't think there is study saying other animals can't do this. There is also much to be said about successful construction of the study like the one in the article. As for example dogs studies show, dogs are more interested in other dog faces than human faces. And dogs are the animals who have the most contact with us. Even shelter dogs show less interest in human faces then the dogs who normally live with people. One can expect that other animals who have even less contact with people would have even less interest in human faces. They should have did this sheep experiment using photos of celebrity sheep - i think the results would be off the charts :) Anyway, studies on dog recognition of human faces (and dogs are very good at it, recognizing emotions, etc..) show that dogs pay much attention to eyes. Another clue here is that deep learning networks trained for human and animal faces contain a lot of eye and snout kernels in the internal layers - it seems that image processing by our brain as well as by DNNs is mostly edge based - edge means high spatial frequency and higher frequency means more informative signal - and snouts and eyes are high density edge clusters compare to the rest of face. That suggests that eyes is a key element in face recognition. The sheep looking at left or right profile photo of a face still see one of the eyes which were shown on the straight mugshot photo of the same face, and thus i think the sheep has enough info to recognize the face. Somebody running a human face recognition DNN can perform the same test using the DNN instead of a sheep and see which neuron paths would get activated. My bet is on eye kernels.

Sniffnoy 9y ago
The article says: > Humans and monkeys are the only other creatures known to do this from two-dimensional images. I have to assume they have at least tried it with other animals?
- rbanffy 9y ago
  Publication bias could be a factor.

icantdrive55 9y ago

I imagine most animals could do this, but just aren't studied. True story coming up. I had an acquaintance go through a rough patch. She lost everything, and was basically homeless. She had two dogs--Ryder, and Cloe. She also had two African Grey parrots. The parrots knew the dogs since they were puppies. A breeder took care of her two parrots for 2.5 year--when she told him she was indigent. She got into section 8 housing, and had me go get her parrots. She was couch surfing for two, and a half years. I wheeled the cage into her apartment, and put the birds in the corner. One of her dogs walked up to the cage, and one of the parrots said, "Hello Ryder". The bird rembered the dogs, and their names. 2.5 years later. The bird knew the different names of the dogs. I couldn't rember their names. (A horrid neighbor turned her into section eight authorities for having dogs over 30 pounds. The dogs ended up being put down. I will never forget the bitch that couldn't just let an infraction slide. Sorry--telling this story brought up some bad memories. There are some terrible people in this world.)