2008-12-23 13:53:14
Richard Macey
December 21, 2008 - 12:30PM
Sharing a movie with an insensitive eight-armed animal may not be every woman's
perfect date.
Renata Pronk did it for science, and made two significant discoveries.
Her unsettling news for Christmas revellers preparing to tuck into seafood
platters is that octopuses can watch television and understand at least some of
what they see. Discriminating viewers, however, they enjoy only high-definition
programs.
In a second finding, the Macquarie University marine biology researcher
resolved a long scientific debate, discovering that octopuses, despite their
intelligence, lack individual personalities.
"Octopuses," Miss Pronk said, "are very smart. I have seen my octopuses open
Vegemite jars by unscrewing the lid. They can find their way through mazes to
reach food rewards at the end.
"And they can learn simple puzzles", recognising that symbols, such as squares
or circles, mean food is available.
"The definition of personality," she said, "is having repetition in your
responses, for example, being consistently bold, or consistently shy, or
consistently aggressive."
To resolve the debate she collected 32 common Sydney, or gloomy, octopuses from
Chowder Bay, near Mosman, and showed them a series of three-minute videos
screened on a monitor in front of their tank.
One video featured a crab, an octopus delicacy.
A second starred another octopus, while a third had a "novel object" they would
not have seen: a plastic bottle swinging on a string.
Miss Pronk then watched each octopus for any consistent response pattern, such
as boldness or aggression.
When the crab movie was screened "they jetted straight over to the monitor and
tried to attack it", she said, adding that was strong evidence they knew they
were watching food.
When the octopus movie was screened some became aggressive while others changed
their skin camouflage or "would go and hide in a corner, moving as far away as
possible".
On viewing the swinging bottle, some puffed themselves up, just in case the
object was a threat, while others paid no attention.
But significantly, when the experiment was repeated over several days, she
found no consistent response from any octopus. Such random responses implied
octopuses have no individual personalities.
She suspected previous efforts to show movies to octopuses failed because their
sophisticated eyes were too fast for the 24-frame per second format of
standard-definition video.
"They would have seen it as a series of still pictures," said Miss Pronk, who
had success using high-definition, operating at 50 frames per second.
She confessed that her work made it difficult to dine on octopus. "I know how
smart they are. They are beautiful animals."
Source: The Sun-Herald
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stranger
Octopusses announce Reseacher has no Personality
Oceanianica News (Deep under Chowder Bay): In an important press release today
the octopuses involved in the Cowderbay Excursion report on their scientific
excursion into the ape territory to assess the intelligence and personality of
the horrific to look at four creatures with four limbs that only move on two of
them that call themselves humans. The 32 members of the scientific team were
specially trained in observational techniques that emphasized uniform behaviors
so as to minimize the impact of their presence on the lower life forms being
studied.
A four limbed creature who self identifies as "Miss Pronk" was extensively
interviewed and examined. She attempted to use primitive externalized colored
skin image projectors to get the 32 excursion members to react. Her primitive
attempts at communication failed with what she called "PAL". Then the subject
attempted to communicate using something she called "HDTV" by showing images of
food. At the sight of a captive octopus the excursion members elected for a
quick withdrawal back to the forward base camp in Chowder Bay (human's name for
it). The members of the excursion ensured at all times to not reveal any
individuality by using the uniform motion training instilled in all octopus
from birth.
An assessment from the team after their safe return to Aquatica City was that
the human subject lacked any personality during any of the tests. She failed to
move on her two upper limbs and also failed to use her lower limbs except for
moving about. In addition she had enclosed herself inside an flexible and rigid
outer shell and refused all attempts to leave her shell so that we could
examine her personality up close.
Naturally the humans require additional study. Under no circumstances should
attempts be made to communicate with them until the safe return of the captive
octopus hostages can be executed.
In addition it was discovered that while some humans have an additional
appendage that is usually kept in the shell the human self identified as Miss
Pronk failed to accept any of the advances by the others to have her interact
with this appendage. For this reason we conclude that Miss Pronk has no
personality.