HDTV reveals brainy octopus has no personality

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interesting.

Here's the complete article and a video:
NewScientist - HDTV reveals brainy octopus has no personality

Indeed!
Thanks for sharing.


I love Octopuses

Let me guess - done on a standard TV right? What about a computer monitor that is CRT with refresh rates bumped up to over 100Hz? Smoooth. HD-TV my arse...

People have been able to watch HD movies for years. The computer monitor has always been capable of such resolutions for a long time

Eh? The fact that the octopus does one thing one day and another the next seems to indicate that it has moods, rather than having no personality.

Memory, one day you see a crab, and slam into a glass wall. Then there is the boy-girl thing, that will cause different reactions.

Stage two is give them a remote and a recliner.

and these are the types of pointless things tax money goes too, something that wont necessarily better humanity, just something to figure out if octopi have personalities. It still isnt as pointless as some things, like gold plated toilets though :/

Yes, I am in this mood because I have lost faith in humanity yet again.

I hope your faith in humanity will be back soon...

Ehh, it could come back once humanity does a complete 180, but free will and stuff prevents that, people will always perpetuate conflict.

What does "personality" in an octopus mean?

ruveyn

The quote explained that it means consistency in behavior. You may be predicted to respond cynically, but the octopi do not exhibit responses that are persistent day to day.

Personally it sounds a little iffy to me; I see a number of observational biases inherit in the experimental results.

There is no free will.

Would you mind telling me/us which biases?

Yes I would mind!

Just kidding.

I read it again and the comment about hormones clears up one concern I had. I guess I overlooked it when I read it the other day.

Next I have to wonder, were the octopi shown videos after they were familiar with it? They must have if the experiment was properly controlled.

I can best explain my point of view with a horrible joke.

Two friends go to see a film about cowboys. During the show, one friend says to the other "I bet 10 euros that horse will step in a gopher hole". His friend agrees, and sure enough, the horse steps in a hole and breaks its leg.

After the movie, the first friend confesses, "I have actually seen that before, so I knew what was going to happen to the horse." His friend says, "Well, I've seen it too, but I didnt think the horse would be dumb enough to do it twice."

As humans we use our memories to profit from foreknowledge. Presumably these test subjects have memories too, and will vary their reactions based on previous results. "I smacked my head on something last time I attacked this crab." "This looks awfully familiar, but it cant be exactly the same as those other two times. I'll try again." "Nope, every time I am in this situation, I dont get the food."

I think a repeated scenario would violate the octopus' instincts about a fluid changing environment. As well, the octopus' solution space is pretty small. Fight, flee or do nothing. I cannot imagine that would graph as anything but a chaotic dither.

Well normally only a social animal would need the potential to adapt to social situations via a personality, for a solitary animal it makes no sense to adapt to either dominant or submissive behaivor.

They have got to go and anthropomorphize everything. It's a NT trait. They should be given Beatrix Pottership research grants to keep them harmlessly entertained.

That or make them do actual research that would help humanity. THis is all part of the reason why the scientific community is really starting to get on my nerves.

Octopuses do not have personality and neither do people:

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/10/ ... aradox.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opini ... ml?_r=2&em

A bit of a joke, but it does bring up questions about the methodology used to assess octopus personality.

After all the comment made:
"Surprisingly, an octopus that was bold, aggressive and exploratory on one day was just as likely to be shy, submissive and stationary the next. This suggests that the gloomy octopus does not have personality. By "personality", researchers mean consistency in behaviour."
Could easily be applied to human beings given information we have about them as well. This could either mean that neither human beings nor octopuses have personalities, or that we aren't assessing these characteristics that well. (especially given that most of us seem to believe very strongly that most human beings do have personalities)