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When I was.a kid, I "learned" from some authority (TV? book?) that cats and dogs could not recognize process two dimensional images, and that a TV was therefore

When I was.a kid, I "learned" from some authority (TV? book?) that cats and dogs could not recognize process two dimensional images, and that a TV was therefore just visual noise to them.

hnbad 3y ago
Same here and while that's demonstrably not true (the explanation I heard was something about the colors and refresh rate so maybe this was true at some point in the past) the article does state the rats don't recognize themselves - that's different from recognizing the picture or being able to see it. That said, it's really more of an art project than anything to do with science as the article makes it clear the rats were trained to push buttons to get sugar, the selfies were just artistic flourish to make a (fairly overt) point.
- frangolino 3y ago
  > That said, it's really more of an art project than anything to do with science as the article makes it clear the rats were trained to push buttons to get sugar, the selfies were just artistic flourish to make a (fairly overt) point. according to the article, this was just to get them hooked at first, but they kept doing it later: > After the rats were trained to push the level for sugar, Lignier changed the experiment's parameters. Sometimes taking a picture would yield a piece of sugar, and sometimes would not. > Nevertheless, the rats kept on jamming the button, taking dozens of selfies. After awhile, he says they largely stopped bothering to eat the sugar, even when it came out.
throw__away7391 3y ago
Same here. Obviously this is not true. A ton of "science" taught to kids through seemingly legitimate channels is in fact just the off the cuff intuitions of some thoroughly average adult, and adults on average tend to be staggeringly uninformed on most topics. EDIT: And even more so for history.
- sixothree 3y ago
  It may have been true during the days of CRTs. I have had a lot of pets and don't remember any of them showing interest in the televisions whatsoever, other than a source of warmth. And that is definitely no longer true.
  - broscillator 3y ago
    The observable non-reaction was true, what was not true was the cause, which is the low frame rate. This is the problem with this kind of thing so often, people observe something and an explanation that sounds completely logical gets spread around.
    - 1000100_1000101 3y ago
      I remember a friend's cat following the mouse pointer on an Amiga with a CRT monitor. When moved off the bottom of the screen, the cat would go right up to the screen and try to peer down to see where it had gone. Not sure about dogs, but cats definitely could see a plain 60Hz CRT display... atleast some of them anyway.
      - broscillator 3y ago
        Sure but a cat would probably have the same reaction if an arrow behaved like that irl, it's not the same as recognizing something as a living being due to how it moves.
  - devbent 3y ago
    I had a dog growing up that insisted on watching The Price Is Right every weekday morning and she'd bark at you until you changed the channel. Then she'd push a stool in front of the TV, sit on it, and watch Bob Barker for an hour and when the show was over she'd get up and leave.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Something about a dog liking to watch someone whose last name is Barker makes this a great story!
TechRemarker 3y ago
Assuming you looked up the current info on that, according to a quick Google current research all seems to show they can recognize familiar faces in photos.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
When I was a kid I was taught by every adult that "humans cannot discern more than 24 fps". Except that we could all immediately tell if a Commodore Amiga demo was running at 25fps or 50fps and groups that'd have the frame rate drop from 50 to 25fps on some frames were "lame". So I knew it was obviously false that humans couldn't discern when something was running at more than 24 fps. Same when little Windows 95 utilities allowed to bump the framerate from 60 to 72 or 75 Hz. I remember those: they'd enhance the experience. Yet everybody was still telling me: "Why do you even bother, 60 Hz is enough, humans cannot discern more than 24 images per second". Same for cats and dogs and the TV of course. Which I knew was wrong because on my Commodore Amiga I'd take a big circle, filled with a solid color, and make it bounce across the screen and watch my cats' reactions. People can be really extremely dumb, even in the face of evidence.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  The claim that nobody could discern more than 24 fps is an odd one (and not one I've ever heard), since it's been generally known that's not true even back before 24 fps was chosen as a standard. Originally some (including Edison) wanted to standardise on higher frame rates for better motion. 24fps was basically compromise to balance against the amount of film used, being fairly close to the minimum speed that was considered satisfactory for motion. Even then, a two bladed shutter was used to flash the image on the screen twice for each frame, and more modern projectors used a three-bladed shutter to reduce flicker.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    > being fairly close to the minimum speed that was considered satisfactory for motion. Basically that: It's a repeated and extremely common misunderstanding of the actual claim, that 24fps is right about the threshold between interpreting a series of images as motion instead of a series of images. A lot of people assume that once you see it as motion, there's nothing more that can be gained.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Fake knowledge was the most common thing circulating among people back then. People mostly couldn't verify anything.
kryptiskt 3y ago
Cats and dogs need higher refresh rates to see TV as a movie rather than a slideshow of images: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/8921/why-can-cats-interpret-things-on-a-monitor-tv-but-dogs-cannot https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/8921/why-can-cat...
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  Very interesting. Its like smaller brains have a higher clock speed. global oscillations?
  - skydhash 3y ago
    Less processing to be done? Something like a fly has a much lower reaction time than a chicken.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Smaller systems tend to tick over faster. Compare a fly heart with the heart of a mammal and the heart of the child with the heart of an adult. Or an elephant... Neural pathways will be longer and so slower, they may have more synapses in them. Overall it would be highly surprising for a larger system to have a higher clockrate than a smaller one.
sebtron 3y ago
It is very easy (and amusing) to prove this wrong by playing a video of birds / fish / other wild animals and let your cat watch :)
- Lewton 3y ago
  Sure, now it is very easy. But back then animals rarely reacted to CRT tvs
dudefeliciano 3y ago
depending on your age that may have been true, I think old crt tvs refresh rate made it so that dogs would not be able to perceive the actual image.
wvh 3y ago
Cats and dogs rely on other senses such as smell and hearing a lot more than humans, who are very visually focussed. They just "see" the world differently and might not be that excited about something that mainly revolves around visual stimuli. I suppose a theoretical cat or dog TV would included a lot of smells, which might not be something you'd actually want in your living room...
stronglikedan 3y ago
My sisters dog will bark incessantly at the TV if there are specific animals on the screen, such as horses and elephants. Surprisingly, cats and dogs are allowed.
- telman17 3y ago
  My aunt’s dog does the same! Horses are not allowed nor are people swimming in any way on TV. The dog also seems to prefer when the actors have British accents.
mistrial9 3y ago
this brings up complicated questions about perception, and the way that thinking links to senses. In other words, it is quite possible that dogs see (poorly, without red) very much what we see, but the cognitive ability and then the "thinking" that happens after that, is very different.

When I was.a kid, I "learned" from some authority (TV? book?) that cats and dogs could not recognize process two dimensional images, and that a TV was therefore just visual noise to them.

hnbad 3y ago

Same here and while that's demonstrably not true (the explanation I heard was something about the colors and refresh rate so maybe this was true at some point in the past) the article does state the rats don't recognize themselves - that's different from recognizing the picture or being able to see it. That said, it's really more of an art project than anything to do with science as the article makes it clear the rats were trained to push buttons to get sugar, the selfies were just artistic flourish to make a (fairly overt) point.

frangolino 3y ago
> That said, it's really more of an art project than anything to do with science as the article makes it clear the rats were trained to push buttons to get sugar, the selfies were just artistic flourish to make a (fairly overt) point. according to the article, this was just to get them hooked at first, but they kept doing it later: > After the rats were trained to push the level for sugar, Lignier changed the experiment's parameters. Sometimes taking a picture would yield a piece of sugar, and sometimes would not. > Nevertheless, the rats kept on jamming the button, taking dozens of selfies. After awhile, he says they largely stopped bothering to eat the sugar, even when it came out.

throw__away7391 3y ago

Same here. Obviously this is not true. A ton of "science" taught to kids through seemingly legitimate channels is in fact just the off the cuff intuitions of some thoroughly average adult, and adults on average tend to be staggeringly uninformed on most topics. EDIT: And even more so for history.

sixothree 3y ago
It may have been true during the days of CRTs. I have had a lot of pets and don't remember any of them showing interest in the televisions whatsoever, other than a source of warmth. And that is definitely no longer true.
- broscillator 3y ago
  The observable non-reaction was true, what was not true was the cause, which is the low frame rate. This is the problem with this kind of thing so often, people observe something and an explanation that sounds completely logical gets spread around.
  - 1000100_1000101 3y ago
    I remember a friend's cat following the mouse pointer on an Amiga with a CRT monitor. When moved off the bottom of the screen, the cat would go right up to the screen and try to peer down to see where it had gone. Not sure about dogs, but cats definitely could see a plain 60Hz CRT display... atleast some of them anyway.
    - broscillator 3y ago
      Sure but a cat would probably have the same reaction if an arrow behaved like that irl, it's not the same as recognizing something as a living being due to how it moves.
- devbent 3y ago
  I had a dog growing up that insisted on watching The Price Is Right every weekday morning and she'd bark at you until you changed the channel. Then she'd push a stool in front of the TV, sit on it, and watch Bob Barker for an hour and when the show was over she'd get up and leave.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Something about a dog liking to watch someone whose last name is Barker makes this a great story!

TechRemarker 3y ago

Assuming you looked up the current info on that, according to a quick Google current research all seems to show they can recognize familiar faces in photos.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

When I was a kid I was taught by every adult that "humans cannot discern more than 24 fps". Except that we could all immediately tell if a Commodore Amiga demo was running at 25fps or 50fps and groups that'd have the frame rate drop from 50 to 25fps on some frames were "lame". So I knew it was obviously false that humans couldn't discern when something was running at more than 24 fps. Same when little Windows 95 utilities allowed to bump the framerate from 60 to 72 or 75 Hz. I remember those: they'd enhance the experience. Yet everybody was still telling me: "Why do you even bother, 60 Hz is enough, humans cannot discern more than 24 images per second". Same for cats and dogs and the TV of course. Which I knew was wrong because on my Commodore Amiga I'd take a big circle, filled with a solid color, and make it bounce across the screen and watch my cats' reactions. People can be really extremely dumb, even in the face of evidence.

stephen_g 3y ago
The claim that nobody could discern more than 24 fps is an odd one (and not one I've ever heard), since it's been generally known that's not true even back before 24 fps was chosen as a standard. Originally some (including Edison) wanted to standardise on higher frame rates for better motion. 24fps was basically compromise to balance against the amount of film used, being fairly close to the minimum speed that was considered satisfactory for motion. Even then, a two bladed shutter was used to flash the image on the screen twice for each frame, and more modern projectors used a three-bladed shutter to reduce flicker.
- Izkata 3y ago
  > being fairly close to the minimum speed that was considered satisfactory for motion. Basically that: It's a repeated and extremely common misunderstanding of the actual claim, that 24fps is right about the threshold between interpreting a series of images as motion instead of a series of images. A lot of people assume that once you see it as motion, there's nothing more that can be gained.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Fake knowledge was the most common thing circulating among people back then. People mostly couldn't verify anything.

kryptiskt 3y ago

Cats and dogs need higher refresh rates to see TV as a movie rather than a slideshow of images: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/8921/why-can-cats-interpret-things-on-a-monitor-tv-but-dogs-cannot https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/8921/why-can-cat...

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
Very interesting. Its like smaller brains have a higher clock speed. global oscillations?
- skydhash 3y ago
  Less processing to be done? Something like a fly has a much lower reaction time than a chicken.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Smaller systems tend to tick over faster. Compare a fly heart with the heart of a mammal and the heart of the child with the heart of an adult. Or an elephant... Neural pathways will be longer and so slower, they may have more synapses in them. Overall it would be highly surprising for a larger system to have a higher clockrate than a smaller one.

sebtron 3y ago

It is very easy (and amusing) to prove this wrong by playing a video of birds / fish / other wild animals and let your cat watch :)

Lewton 3y ago
Sure, now it is very easy. But back then animals rarely reacted to CRT tvs

dudefeliciano 3y ago

depending on your age that may have been true, I think old crt tvs refresh rate made it so that dogs would not be able to perceive the actual image.

wvh 3y ago

Cats and dogs rely on other senses such as smell and hearing a lot more than humans, who are very visually focussed. They just "see" the world differently and might not be that excited about something that mainly revolves around visual stimuli. I suppose a theoretical cat or dog TV would included a lot of smells, which might not be something you'd actually want in your living room...

stronglikedan 3y ago

My sisters dog will bark incessantly at the TV if there are specific animals on the screen, such as horses and elephants. Surprisingly, cats and dogs are allowed.

telman17 3y ago
My aunt’s dog does the same! Horses are not allowed nor are people swimming in any way on TV. The dog also seems to prefer when the actors have British accents.

mistrial9 3y ago

this brings up complicated questions about perception, and the way that thinking links to senses. In other words, it is quite possible that dogs see (poorly, without red) very much what we see, but the cognitive ability and then the "thinking" that happens after that, is very different.