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I'm curious to how the parrots perceive the video images ... with cameras, codecs and screens tuned to a human visual system. While our eyes have three primari

• pjmlp 4y ago
  We need to improve our understanding of parrot languages. :)
  • eimrine 4y ago
    Not language but rather physiology. Don't you sympathize the birds which are annoyed by our flickering displays?
    • chimpanzee 4y ago
      Why not language? We could then ask them how they feel rather than just assuming. People themselves usually prefer receiving informed, accurate sympathy rather than sympathy based on crude assumptions. And physiology alone seems unlikely to tell us how they “feel” about it. Perhaps they are so amazed by the technology that they couldn’t care less about the flicker :)
      • eimrine 4y ago
        We can barely do this to apes (gorilla Koko and maybe few others). Best cognitive interaction what the best educated birds can perform is to count 2+3 verbally (some African grey parrot).
        • astrange 4y ago
          We can't teach language to apes. Chimps can learn words, but a sentence isn't a bag of words, and they don't use recursion or even ask questions. Parrots actually do better.
      • IIAOPSW 4y ago
        There's no grammar, and thus no arbitrary construction of concepts beyond the fixed literal vocabulary. Without meaning in word order, there's no difference between "what the cat ate" and "what ate the cat". I wouldn't call it "language" for the same reason I wouldn't call HTML "programming". It does something adjacent, has some superficial similarities, but its limited in what it can ultimately be used for.
        • chimpanzee 4y ago
          Some words, like “language”, are often used in the common sense rather than the technical sense. Sometimes for simplicity. Sometimes for humor. And sometimes it happens on Hacker News. But, if we’re being pedantic, I should mention that there are languages that do not require ordering for meaning but instead use declensions and conjugations (though ordering may still be used for further expressiveness). Though maybe you include this in your “fixed literal vocabulary”. Edit: A quick search suggest parrots can indeed use a basic grammar via sentence structuring. One of a few relevant search results: https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-conjunction-birds-learn-artificial-grammar/#:~:text=It%20turns%20out%20we're,on%20par%20with%20infant%20humans https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-con....
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
    • arcanemachiner 4y ago
      We've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? What if it's more like using an old telephone or a black-and-white TV? A hindrance, but better than what came before?
      • eimrine 4y ago
        > We've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly probable, it is annoyance by any definition. It may be not annoying to spiders which have a tiny brain and live in a world of mechanical sense, but birds are smart and most of their brain is shaped for visual data. > A hindrance, but better than what came before? How can this statement be applied to birds? They neither expect nor desire all these technology and the only reason they are not scared of it is a professionalism of their caretakers.
        • teapot7 4y ago
          > If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly probable, it is annoyance by any definition. Well, an annoyance by your definition. Not sure how you managed to declare it universal.
          • eimrine 4y ago
            If you name me at least one source of flickering available to parrots in the wild, I consider my assumption wrong. You sound like a superoptimist advising to drive a screw with a hammer. And you know the superoptimist is not totally wrong because it is really possible in some circumstances.
            • thfuran 4y ago
              So your working definition of annoyance is "that which cannot be found in the natural world"?
              • eimrine 4y ago
  • JoeDaDude 4y ago
    I don't disagree, but the trend is to teach parrots our language, with some degree of success [1]. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)
  • m463 4y ago
    They don't have languages per se, more like expressions of emotion. They also imitate human expressions (and maybe learn our language, for bigger birds)
    • musiccog 4y ago
      You comment about 'expressions of emotion' reminded me to tell this story. We have had wild Rainbow Lorikeets visiting us for over 20 years. In our recently previous home we were up to 5 generations of birds, then we had to move. There was one who was obviously out of her usual flock, and at the edge of desperation, who allowed me to hand feed her, and she was the first wild bird who decided to come inside and have food. For over 10 years she came every day, met a mate after about 2 years, and taught him to come and sit beside me on the couch in the afternoon. Then, over the next 8 years we had many families join us. She grew to understand us, even appearing to understand us when we were happy, and when we were sad - that little Lorikeet really appeared to be empathic.. When she flew off to die (just last year) she told us in her own way, to look after her husband. The next day, her hubbie turned up disconsolate.. He didn't want water.. He didn't want food.. He just sat in his spot on the top of a chair and cried.. This went on for a week, with us force-feeding him (well not really, but hand-feeding). Over the next few weeks, his visits became less frequent - but at least he was eating. Smart parrots like Lorikeets somehow appear to share so many similar 'feelings' as us. We even had one who spoke English and had a great sense of humour who understood context.
      • m463 4y ago
        what a wonderful story. Having a bird, I'm sort of amazed how people just don't understand just how complex and deep things can go. I speak to other folks with birds and am amazed. I met one lady picking her cockatiel up at the vet and she told me it was so convenient that her bird can say yes and no. But she couldn't talk. So I asked how it worked. She said the bird could choose between two different color cards - one was for yes, the other was for no. Then she would answer questions "Do you want to go to bed?" "are you hungry?" I didn't know how the bird was taught, the lady said the previous owner had taught her, but this kind of stuff is common. Also, more in line with your experience, you might like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Parrots_of_Telegraph_Hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Parrots_of_Telegraph_...
• andai 4y ago
  Where can I learn more about this stuff? Also for other animals. I remember reading that a fly's "framerate" is so high, it doesn't see an image on TV, just the dot created by the electron beam slowly making its way across.
  • michaelmrose 4y ago
    > A new study shows that their rapid vision may be a result of their photoreceptors - specialised cells found in the retina - physically contracting in response to light. The mechanical force then generates electrical responses that are sent to the brain much faster than, for example, in our own eyes, where responses are generated using traditional chemical messengers. https://phys.org/news/2012-10-eye-mystery-insight-flies-fastest.html https://phys.org/news/2012-10-eye-mystery-insight-flies-fast...
  • roughly 4y ago
    Ed Yong just put out a book, “An Immense World,” all about animal senses and how they experience the world. It’s magical. https://bookshop.org/p/books/an-immense-world-how-animal-senses-reveal-the-hidden-realms-around-us-ed-yong/17476424 https://bookshop.org/p/books/an-immense-world-how-animal-sen...
  • wanderingstan 4y ago
    If you like this, you’ll love learning about “Imaginary Colors” aka “Impossible colors”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color?wprov=sfti1 Also don’t miss the Mantis Shrimp eyes: https://www.radiolab.org/podcast/211178-rip-rainbow https://www.radiolab.org/podcast/211178-rip-rainbow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp?wprov=sfti1
    • bitwize 4y ago
      Mantis shrimp eyes, it turns out, aren't as extraordinary as you might think. Yes, they have twelve different color receptors... which means they can see twelve different colors. Near as I can tell they can't integrate all the input from their compound eyes into a single, cohesive image. Rather, different sections of their visual system are tied directly to ganglia that recognize features or movement characteristic of predators, prey, or other mantis shrimp.[0] It really is the simplest possible visual system that could work for a mantis shrimp. It's like the first engineer from Do-While Jones's story about the breakfast food cooker[1] designed the mantis shrimp's visual system, and the second engineer from that story designed ours. (Of course as far as Do-While Jones is concerned, both animals had the same designer.) [0] https://ryanblakeley.net/p/mantis-shrimp-eyes https://ryanblakeley.net/p/mantis-shrimp-eyes [1] http://www.scienceagainstevolution.info/dwj/toaster.htm http://www.scienceagainstevolution.info/dwj/toaster.htm
• haolez 4y ago
  This got me thinking: what would we see if we implanted (with a futuristic tech) cones that can see ultraviolet? Would we see a new color? Or perhaps our brain would recalibrate and ultraviolet would be the new purple?
  • perfmode 4y ago
    there are already some people in the population who have enhanced visual perception. i believe they have a fourth cone.
    • bassrattle 4y ago
      Yes! It's called terachromatism, and I gather they perceive color nearly the same except the subtle differences between colors is more pronounced.
      • bassrattle 4y ago
        *tetrachromatism
        • thfuran 4y ago
          Terachromatism would be pretty extreme.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • bitwize 4y ago
    Our cones can already perceive ultraviolet. The lenses of our eyes filter UV out. That is why we are prone to cataracts; the UV light the lens absorbs clouds it over time. People who lack eye lenses have been reported to see ultraviolet as a light, bright purple. Maybe if you had a tetrachromat with no lens, she would see it differently, I don't know.
    • selimthegrim 4y ago
• bhawks 4y ago
  If anything I would say their ability to cope with the poor medium indicates even more complex levels of understanding. They are able to reason that it is a real bird, it is not physically present, doesn't sound perfect, doesnt look right but they still engage despite all of that friction.
  • Swizec 4y ago
    What’s worse: My parrot will happily attack the screen when I’m talking on FaceTime and he deems it’s been long enough or doesn’t like the human on the other end. For example he lets me talk to my sister but attacks my mom’s video immediately.
    • cutemonster 4y ago
      If your mom visits in person, then how does he behave?
      • Swizec 4y ago
        Kill on sight. But he loves my sister. We think it’s because he first met my sister as a baby and only met my mom when he was older. Although it’s been a while for pandemic reasons so I don’t have any recent data.
        • albatross13 4y ago
          Your parrot sounds like a riot. Give him a pat for me.
• dorfsmay 4y ago
  Humans took pictures and watched movies and TV in black and white without any issue. High def colour is nice but not a must have to communicate.
  • TomK32 4y ago
    You can go further back to the art created by our ancestors: cave paintings, carved stone figurines and cubism can all be understood by modern humans who are 99% of their time confronted with a high resolution environment.
  • pimlottc 4y ago
    They did, but not without a lot of tricks to compensate for the uneven color sensitivity of early black and white film. Standard makeup didn’t look right on film so they adopted some very extreme styles just so things would look “normal” on screen [0]. The point is, there’s no “objective” version of black and white, or full-color, or full-color-except-for-ultraviolent. They’re all tuned for our specific visual perception and may look bizarre past the point of recognition for other species. 0: https://cosmeticsandskin.com/aba/max-and-the-tube.php https://cosmeticsandskin.com/aba/max-and-the-tube.php
    • conductr 4y ago
      Looking bizarre is still ok in this context though. The birds are socially starved captives and just seeing the shape of another bird, along with the sounds, is likely highly stimulating. I’m thinking of when my phone is in high contrast mode, it looks bizarre but it’s still totally usable for all purposes. If it was the only mode, FaceTime would still be usable to paint a general picture of what you looked like even though we have never met.
    • marci 4y ago
      This reminds me of how game designers in the 80/90's took the screen into consideration for their pixel art, and why old games don't look as good on modern screens https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro-pixel-artists-design-with-crts-in-mind https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro...