3 ms·

This and the recent orca stories have made me wonder about animal meta-learning: the mental processes that go into motivating, succeeding and sustaining non-ins

by adolph 3y ago

This and the recent orca stories have made me wonder about animal meta-learning: the mental processes that go into motivating, succeeding and sustaining non-instinctual behaviors. Clearly different kinds of animals can be trained to behave in certain ways. Is it possible to train an animal to train other animals?

Terr_ 3y ago
I sometimes wonder how much "animal culture" might exist in the wild that we are somehow missing, simply because it doesn't survive the transplant to environments where we can do detailed studies. (Either because the environment itself is so strange it gets disrupted, or how the individual animals were rescued/abducted/raised and introduced, etc.) For example, what all if those notoriously-non-reproducing zoo pandas just... didn't get the right bad-influences when they were growing up? Some zoos have even attempted to use panda-porn to address the issue.
- BirAdam 3y ago
  I had a pet chinchilla once. I got him after he finished what amounts to chinchilla school. The breeder explained to me that she can’t immediately separate a chinchilla after it starts eating normal food as it needs to be taught to bathe, chew, and other chinchilla things by the older chinchillas. There can definitely be animal culture, and from what I have observed most animals have some level it. I find that humans give ourselves way too much credit. We may be smarter, but I don’t think it’s by all that much really… just that the last bit of smarts makes a rather large impact.
  - adolph 3y ago
    That is fascinating and reminds me now of bird rescue training where the human gets in costume and flies an ultralight to train migratory behavior. https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/ultralights-are-birds https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/ultralights-are...
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Crow courts... https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bird-courts-crow-courts-aka-bird-parliaments.11783/ https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bird-courts-cr...
- adolph 3y ago
  > exist in the wild that we are somehow missing An Immense World by Ed Yong about sense and sense processing of living things convinces me there is a lot we human's misapprehend or uncomprehend about the world. https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp/0593133234 https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp... Our Umwelt is still limited; it just doesn’t feel that way. To us, it feels all-encompassing. It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.
jimmygrapes 3y ago
I have not the academic studies to support it, but I have personally witnessed many occasions where mother animals teach their offspring how to behave in context, as well as externally introduced animals influencing the relatively "indigent" population. Cats and dogs, I mean. Cats and dogs both can and sometimes learn behavior from other animals that were in a place first, and from newly introduced ones. I wonder sometimes if there are certain instinctual behaviors "unlocked" in some way. I have a cat raised from infancy without other cats (an unsanctioned rescue that I eye-dropper fed and wet wiped to the point of self-sufficiency); she never purred in my presence for 6 years, but seems to have learned purring from an adult cat temporarily introduced into our home for a few months. That other cat is gone, but now my cat purrs frequently. Dogs do similar - they learn behaviors from all influences, and behaviors learned from other dogs (and other animals) seem to be more "sticky" than treat/avoidance training strategies.
- jamiek88 3y ago
  My current dogs were largely trained by a dog they haven’t met and that died before they were born. The current elder lady learned how to behave from the elder gentleman who died six years ago. He was very well behaved, slightly deaf and blind so didn’t bark at door bells and other dogs barking etc and had a lovely calm but playful nature. He raised the rescue puppy we got. She in turn has raised the other two rescues we ended up with. We now have another dog who is 16 and with us for essentially extended hospice and he was raised ‘outside of the culture’ and it’s obvious! Even now the other dogs correct him and he is mildly conforming but mostly very stubborn and well, an old man!
  - adolph 3y ago
    Your's and the parent's story makes me wonder if dogs are best socialized among humans in intergenerational clusters of dogs. For all the dog parks there are I have a feeling from many dogs I and my dogs meet on the street that there is an epidemic of dog loneliness much that that spoken of regarding humans.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
In 1589, Leonard Mascall explained his method of training oxen by yoking them together with others in his book the 'Government of Cattel' (extract abridged by me): "Some doe yoke them together... ye shal likewise take good heede that one oxe touch not another with their hornes, so within two or three dayes that yee see them waxe more tame... to frame a young oxe to the plough or carte, yée shall matche him best with an olde oxe that is tame, very strong and gentle, which will holde the young oxe backe if he be too hastie, or plucke him forward, if he be too slowe, or if ye will ye may make a yoke for three oxen, and put the young oxe in the middes, and by that meanes ye shall make the most hardiest oxe to be tame, and refuse no labour at the length. For the young oxe (being neuer so stubborne) in remaining betweene the two olde oxen, they will if he be too flacke, constrayne him to drawe, or if he would shoote forwarde, they will holde him backe and stay him, or if he would draw backe, they will holde him forwarde. Also if he would lye downe, the other wil hold him vp. Thus by pollicie he may be let of his stubborne frowardnes. Also yoke him to wilde bullockes that haue not laboured before, and so let them gee yoked lose together for two or three daies, and so they will waxe tame. And a little chastening after willmake him endure to labour wel..." Link to the book's text[1] if you would like to read it in full. For a book which predates copyright it took me far too long to find an openly accessible version! Similarly, horses have traditionally been broken into harness by having at first the foal run alongside the vehicle, which is pulled by older horses (I have heard that the foal's mother is ideal). When the horse is old enough, it can be harnessed itself, again next to experienced draught horses. Essentially this is exploiting the animals' instinct to follow the example of their elders. I think it sounds like a rather humane method of horse training, but I don't think it's as common as other methods these days. [1]: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A07176.0001.001/1:1?rgn=div1;view=toc https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A07176.0001.001/1:1?rgn=di...

by adolph 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago

I sometimes wonder how much "animal culture" might exist in the wild that we are somehow missing, simply because it doesn't survive the transplant to environments where we can do detailed studies. (Either because the environment itself is so strange it gets disrupted, or how the individual animals were rescued/abducted/raised and introduced, etc.) For example, what all if those notoriously-non-reproducing zoo pandas just... didn't get the right bad-influences when they were growing up? Some zoos have even attempted to use panda-porn to address the issue.

BirAdam 3y ago
I had a pet chinchilla once. I got him after he finished what amounts to chinchilla school. The breeder explained to me that she can’t immediately separate a chinchilla after it starts eating normal food as it needs to be taught to bathe, chew, and other chinchilla things by the older chinchillas. There can definitely be animal culture, and from what I have observed most animals have some level it. I find that humans give ourselves way too much credit. We may be smarter, but I don’t think it’s by all that much really… just that the last bit of smarts makes a rather large impact.
- adolph 3y ago
  That is fascinating and reminds me now of bird rescue training where the human gets in costume and flies an ultralight to train migratory behavior. https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/ultralights-are-birds https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/ultralights-are...
Apocryphon 3y ago
Crow courts... https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bird-courts-crow-courts-aka-bird-parliaments.11783/ https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bird-courts-cr...
adolph 3y ago
> exist in the wild that we are somehow missing An Immense World by Ed Yong about sense and sense processing of living things convinces me there is a lot we human's misapprehend or uncomprehend about the world. https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp/0593133234 https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp... Our Umwelt is still limited; it just doesn’t feel that way. To us, it feels all-encompassing. It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.

jimmygrapes 3y ago

I have not the academic studies to support it, but I have personally witnessed many occasions where mother animals teach their offspring how to behave in context, as well as externally introduced animals influencing the relatively "indigent" population. Cats and dogs, I mean. Cats and dogs both can and sometimes learn behavior from other animals that were in a place first, and from newly introduced ones. I wonder sometimes if there are certain instinctual behaviors "unlocked" in some way. I have a cat raised from infancy without other cats (an unsanctioned rescue that I eye-dropper fed and wet wiped to the point of self-sufficiency); she never purred in my presence for 6 years, but seems to have learned purring from an adult cat temporarily introduced into our home for a few months. That other cat is gone, but now my cat purrs frequently. Dogs do similar - they learn behaviors from all influences, and behaviors learned from other dogs (and other animals) seem to be more "sticky" than treat/avoidance training strategies.

jamiek88 3y ago
My current dogs were largely trained by a dog they haven’t met and that died before they were born. The current elder lady learned how to behave from the elder gentleman who died six years ago. He was very well behaved, slightly deaf and blind so didn’t bark at door bells and other dogs barking etc and had a lovely calm but playful nature. He raised the rescue puppy we got. She in turn has raised the other two rescues we ended up with. We now have another dog who is 16 and with us for essentially extended hospice and he was raised ‘outside of the culture’ and it’s obvious! Even now the other dogs correct him and he is mildly conforming but mostly very stubborn and well, an old man!
- adolph 3y ago
  Your's and the parent's story makes me wonder if dogs are best socialized among humans in intergenerational clusters of dogs. For all the dog parks there are I have a feeling from many dogs I and my dogs meet on the street that there is an epidemic of dog loneliness much that that spoken of regarding humans.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

In 1589, Leonard Mascall explained his method of training oxen by yoking them together with others in his book the 'Government of Cattel' (extract abridged by me): "Some doe yoke them together... ye shal likewise take good heede that one oxe touch not another with their hornes, so within two or three dayes that yee see them waxe more tame... to frame a young oxe to the plough or carte, yée shall matche him best with an olde oxe that is tame, very strong and gentle, which will holde the young oxe backe if he be too hastie, or plucke him forward, if he be too slowe, or if ye will ye may make a yoke for three oxen, and put the young oxe in the middes, and by that meanes ye shall make the most hardiest oxe to be tame, and refuse no labour at the length. For the young oxe (being neuer so stubborne) in remaining betweene the two olde oxen, they will if he be too flacke, constrayne him to drawe, or if he would shoote forwarde, they will holde him backe and stay him, or if he would draw backe, they will holde him forwarde. Also if he would lye downe, the other wil hold him vp. Thus by pollicie he may be let of his stubborne frowardnes. Also yoke him to wilde bullockes that haue not laboured before, and so let them gee yoked lose together for two or three daies, and so they will waxe tame. And a little chastening after willmake him endure to labour wel..." Link to the book's text[1] if you would like to read it in full. For a book which predates copyright it took me far too long to find an openly accessible version! Similarly, horses have traditionally been broken into harness by having at first the foal run alongside the vehicle, which is pulled by older horses (I have heard that the foal's mother is ideal). When the horse is old enough, it can be harnessed itself, again next to experienced draught horses. Essentially this is exploiting the animals' instinct to follow the example of their elders. I think it sounds like a rather humane method of horse training, but I don't think it's as common as other methods these days. [1]: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A07176.0001.001/1:1?rgn=div1;view=toc https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A07176.0001.001/1:1?rgn=di...