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Edit: apparently this is b.s. On an unrelated note, I recently found out that ants pass the mirror test[0]. Is that weird or what? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.o

by kuwze 8y ago

Edit: apparently this is b.s. On an unrelated note, I recently found out that ants pass the mirror test[0]. Is that weird or what? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Insects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Insects

nervousvarun 8y ago
Disclaimer: Woefully ignorant here in cognitive sciences but the mirror test has always seemed ambiguous to me. How do they determine that the animal is not just...well apathetic about seeing themselves in a mirror? For worthless anecdotal example my dog (and per that link dogs don't pass this test at least officially) when she was a puppy did react to the mirror but now never does as an adult. Why does that not just mean she's...well not particularly vain? Edit: Just saw the extensive section in your wiki link on "false-negatives"...which is my entire post so...it's a thing after all.
notafraudster 8y ago
This may well be true -- I clicked with enthusiasm because this would interest me a lot -- but if you follow the link you'll see that the married authors of the "study" have a history of making nonsense claims (she has two separate nonsense Wifi studies, which you'll see a bunch if you Google). The study itself was published in a pay-to-publish journal with no peer review. I read the paper. The design, as listed in the paper, seems fine. The main rival hypothesis for me would be that the ants do see the mirror, don't think it's themselves or pass the mirror test, and scratch because they're bothered by the marking on their face which they can feel. But the authors do claim to test this and find that ants not exposed to mirrors don't scratch their faces. So to be clear the threat I'm proposing to the study's validity is fraud on the part of the authors, not a failed execution.
- kuwze 8y ago
  Ugh I knew I should have done more research into it. Thanks for finding that out.
  - notafraudster 8y ago
    No problem. I hope someone replicates the substantive result in a less tainted way!

by kuwze 8y ago

nervousvarun 8y ago

Disclaimer: Woefully ignorant here in cognitive sciences but the mirror test has always seemed ambiguous to me. How do they determine that the animal is not just...well apathetic about seeing themselves in a mirror? For worthless anecdotal example my dog (and per that link dogs don't pass this test at least officially) when she was a puppy did react to the mirror but now never does as an adult. Why does that not just mean she's...well not particularly vain? Edit: Just saw the extensive section in your wiki link on "false-negatives"...which is my entire post so...it's a thing after all.

notafraudster 8y ago

This may well be true -- I clicked with enthusiasm because this would interest me a lot -- but if you follow the link you'll see that the married authors of the "study" have a history of making nonsense claims (she has two separate nonsense Wifi studies, which you'll see a bunch if you Google). The study itself was published in a pay-to-publish journal with no peer review. I read the paper. The design, as listed in the paper, seems fine. The main rival hypothesis for me would be that the ants do see the mirror, don't think it's themselves or pass the mirror test, and scratch because they're bothered by the marking on their face which they can feel. But the authors do claim to test this and find that ants not exposed to mirrors don't scratch their faces. So to be clear the threat I'm proposing to the study's validity is fraud on the part of the authors, not a failed execution.

kuwze 8y ago
Ugh I knew I should have done more research into it. Thanks for finding that out.
- notafraudster 8y ago
  No problem. I hope someone replicates the substantive result in a less tainted way!