03/03/2021
Slimme zeekat scoort marshmallow-test
Zeekatten zijn aan een nieuwe versie van de marshmallow-test onderworpen en de resultaten lijken aan te tonen dat er meer aan de hand is met hun 'vreemde kleine hersenen' dan we wisten!
Spiegel je aan de natuur!
Zeekatten of sepia's zijn een orde van weekdieren die behoort tot de inktvissen.
SA: A new test of 'cephalopod smarts' has reinforced how important it is for us humans to not underestimate animal intelligence.
Cuttlefish have been put to a new version of the marshmallow test, and the results appear to demonstrate that there's more going on in their strange little brains than we knew.
Their ability to learn and adapt, the researchers said, could have evolved to give cuttlefish an edge in the cutthroat eat-or-be-eaten marine world they live in.
The marshmallow test, or Stanford marshmallow experiment, is pretty straightforward. A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told if they can manage not to eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they'll get a second marshmallow, and be allowed to eat both.
This ability to delay gratification demonstrates cognitive abilities such as future planning, and it was originally conducted to study how human cognition develops; specifically, at what age a human is smart enough to delay gratification if it means a better outcome later.
Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them straight away.
Some primates can delay gratification, along with dogs, albeit inconsistently. Corvids, too, have passed the marshmallow test.
Wik: The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on delayed gratification in 1972 led by psychologist Walter Mischel, a professor at Stanford University. In this study, a child was offered a choice between one small but immediate reward, or two small rewards if they waited for a period of time. During this time, the researcher left the room for about 15 minutes and then returned. The reward was either a marshmallow or pretzel stick, depending on the child's preference. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment,body mass index (BMI), and other life measures. A replication attempt with a sample from a more diverse population, over 10 times larger than the original study, showed only half the effect of the original study. The replication suggested that economic background, rather than willpower, explained the other half.
https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-children
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment
A new test of cephalopod smarts has reinforced how important it is for us humans to not underestimate animal intelligence.
