4 ms·

There was a funny related example of the African Gray parrot Alex surprising the trainers by silently counting in his head. They were training a younger parrot

There was a funny related example of the African Gray parrot Alex surprising the trainers by silently counting in his head. They were training a younger parrot and trying to get the younger parrot to count to two by tapping twice. Alex overheard the training and got impatient with the other bird. He yelled out “two” and then after two more taps “four” and then “six”. The trainers were just expecting “two” each time. It was this book: https://www.amazon.com/Are-Smart-Enough-Know-Animals/dp/0393353664/ https://www.amazon.com/Are-Smart-Enough-Know-Animals/dp/0393... The book is interesting and goes into how humans need to set up experiments properly to actually test non-human animals in ways that make sense (rather than just in some biased human way). One quick example was testing tool use, the original experimenters left branches on the ground for the monkeys to use, but the monkeys can’t pick stuff up that’s flat on the ground since they’re normally in trees (their hands don’t have thumbs that move that way). When he redid the experiment with the tool raised they were able to grab and use it. Same author also wrote Chimpanzee Politics and did this great video experiment: https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg

symstym 5y ago
You may appreciate this poignant sci-fi short story/video that references and expands on the story of Alex: https://vimeo.com/195588827 https://vimeo.com/195588827
- fossuser 5y ago
  Looks like the Ted Chiang short story? Thanks - it’s great. I’d recommend his other stories too if you like that one. I’ve also got a bunch of links to other stories I’ve liked here too: https://zalberico.com/about/ https://zalberico.com/about/
kwhitefoot 5y ago
Even more affecting to me was Alex asking what colour he was: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/alex-the-parrot-is-the-only-non-human-to-ask-the-existential-question-what-color-am-i-2/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/alex-the-parrot-is...
- xwdv 5y ago
  He said no such thing he was asking what color a parrot in the mirror was.
  - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
    We can't know for certain (at least not from that article), but there is some evidence that at least a few exceptional birds can pass the mirror test, and Alex certainly appears to have been an exceptional bird. It's plausible that he understood it was his own image.
outworlder 5y ago
Alex, that's the one who called an apple a "banerry", right? :)
bsza 5y ago
There was this horse named Clever Hans whose trick was that you could give him a math problem and he would tap out the answer with his hoof. Of course, his powers were fake, but the way he actually did it is brilliant. When the number of taps approached the correct answer, his trainer became excited. Hans picked up on this and stopped right when the trainer's excitement reached its peak. The trainer had no idea this was happening. He was fooled by a horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fossuser 5y ago
  And there’s that famous computer vision story of a model that was supposed to detect tanks in images but actually just detected whether or not it was sunny (all the tank pictures in the training set were sunny, non tanks overcast). Children will make similar classification errors when learning too. None of this means that it’s not possible they can also learn counting, but just that scientists need to be clever about experimental design. The book goes into that.
  - heretoruinurday 5y ago
    The tank story is urban legend. https://www.gwern.net/Tanks https://www.gwern.net/Tanks
    - fossuser 5y ago
      Thanks - good to know the truth around that specific story. The example and class of failure (even if it didn't actually occur in this specific case) is still the point I was trying to make. Those types of failures can happen - even if the specifics of the tank example are urban legend.
rubyn00bie 5y ago
A dog I live with, not technically mine, can count to at least three. She hates waiting in her harness before we go on walks, and has learned that I am ready to go after taking three poop bags. If I only pull two bags, she won’t come downstairs and wait by the door. If I pull the third bag, she immediately walks down the stairs. I noticed it the other day because I had two bags on me; so, she only heard me pull one bag and refused to walk downstairs. Then I pulled a second one, still nothing. Finally, I pulled the third one and she immediately trotted on down. Now that I’m aware of it, I’ve been paying attention and yep... she only ever comes down after hearing a third bag. I’ve been pretty shocked by it to be honest (in a good way)...
- bobthechef 5y ago
  This reaction to quantity does not imply the concept of number.
  - IntrepidWorm 5y ago
    Surely it implies an ability to count incrementally, which is all OP was implying? The dog does not have to abstract the concept of '3' to be able to count- it's still very interesting.
    - wraptile 5y ago
      > Surely it implies an ability to count incrementally Not necessarily. It could be just ability observe scale not individual numbers. i.e. 3 bags look big enough amount of bags for a walk not that there are 3 bags. Would the dog not come when 4 bags are taken? What if 2 bigger bags are taken? It's kinda hard to deduce anything from this anecdote other than the dog seems to understand a pattern.
      - IntrepidWorm 5y ago
        Perhaps I was reading too far into OP's anecdote then, but it seemed there was a delay between bag pulls, and that only after the third bag the dog responded. I also was under the impression that this was occuring out of direct line of sight (as the dog was coming down the stairs following the third bag) and so suggested the dog was interpreting the pulls incrementally rather than picking up on the handful of three bags through direct observation.

symstym 5y ago

You may appreciate this poignant sci-fi short story/video that references and expands on the story of Alex: https://vimeo.com/195588827 https://vimeo.com/195588827

fossuser 5y ago
Looks like the Ted Chiang short story? Thanks - it’s great. I’d recommend his other stories too if you like that one. I’ve also got a bunch of links to other stories I’ve liked here too: https://zalberico.com/about/ https://zalberico.com/about/

kwhitefoot 5y ago

Even more affecting to me was Alex asking what colour he was: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/alex-the-parrot-is-the-only-non-human-to-ask-the-existential-question-what-color-am-i-2/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/27/alex-the-parrot-is...

xwdv 5y ago
He said no such thing he was asking what color a parrot in the mirror was.
- PhasmaFelis 5y ago
  We can't know for certain (at least not from that article), but there is some evidence that at least a few exceptional birds can pass the mirror test, and Alex certainly appears to have been an exceptional bird. It's plausible that he understood it was his own image.

outworlder 5y ago

Alex, that's the one who called an apple a "banerry", right? :)

bsza 5y ago

There was this horse named Clever Hans whose trick was that you could give him a math problem and he would tap out the answer with his hoof. Of course, his powers were fake, but the way he actually did it is brilliant. When the number of taps approached the correct answer, his trainer became excited. Hans picked up on this and stopped right when the trainer's excitement reached its peak. The trainer had no idea this was happening. He was fooled by a horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fossuser 5y ago
And there’s that famous computer vision story of a model that was supposed to detect tanks in images but actually just detected whether or not it was sunny (all the tank pictures in the training set were sunny, non tanks overcast). Children will make similar classification errors when learning too. None of this means that it’s not possible they can also learn counting, but just that scientists need to be clever about experimental design. The book goes into that.
- heretoruinurday 5y ago
  The tank story is urban legend. https://www.gwern.net/Tanks https://www.gwern.net/Tanks
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Thanks - good to know the truth around that specific story. The example and class of failure (even if it didn't actually occur in this specific case) is still the point I was trying to make. Those types of failures can happen - even if the specifics of the tank example are urban legend.

rubyn00bie 5y ago

A dog I live with, not technically mine, can count to at least three. She hates waiting in her harness before we go on walks, and has learned that I am ready to go after taking three poop bags. If I only pull two bags, she won’t come downstairs and wait by the door. If I pull the third bag, she immediately walks down the stairs. I noticed it the other day because I had two bags on me; so, she only heard me pull one bag and refused to walk downstairs. Then I pulled a second one, still nothing. Finally, I pulled the third one and she immediately trotted on down. Now that I’m aware of it, I’ve been paying attention and yep... she only ever comes down after hearing a third bag. I’ve been pretty shocked by it to be honest (in a good way)...

bobthechef 5y ago
This reaction to quantity does not imply the concept of number.
- IntrepidWorm 5y ago
  Surely it implies an ability to count incrementally, which is all OP was implying? The dog does not have to abstract the concept of '3' to be able to count- it's still very interesting.
  - wraptile 5y ago
    > Surely it implies an ability to count incrementally Not necessarily. It could be just ability observe scale not individual numbers. i.e. 3 bags look big enough amount of bags for a walk not that there are 3 bags. Would the dog not come when 4 bags are taken? What if 2 bigger bags are taken? It's kinda hard to deduce anything from this anecdote other than the dog seems to understand a pattern.
    - IntrepidWorm 5y ago
      Perhaps I was reading too far into OP's anecdote then, but it seemed there was a delay between bag pulls, and that only after the third bag the dog responded. I also was under the impression that this was occuring out of direct line of sight (as the dog was coming down the stairs following the third bag) and so suggested the dog was interpreting the pulls incrementally rather than picking up on the handful of three bags through direct observation.