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Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

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Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#21

Post by montjoy »

tokai wrote: post #11

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

I don’t think it matters. While it would have been interesting if the rats got pleasure looking at themselves, ultimately this is an art project about human society that is meant for human consumption. The fact that we read about it means it was somewhat successful. The issue of whether the rats got a dopamine kick from just pressing the button is irrelevant.

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#22

Post by dudefeliciano »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #2

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.

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.

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#23

Post by moolcool »

ravenstine wrote: post #13
tokai wrote: post #11

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

Even that is attributing too much. When you give animals food, they tend to do things to get that food, humans being no exception. If you plant a soft-serve machine in the middle of a city square, you can bet people will press the lever to receive free ice cream. Hell, just give out coupons for free anything and people will show up. In either case, if you take away the free thing, people will keep returning in hopes…

> not just because they've been conditioned but because they want more of the free thing

That is what literally what "conditioned" means. You're belabouring a point that OP is already making, and then following that up by sneering at the "34th percentile". Maybe the real art is always in the comments section.

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#25

Post by stephen_g »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #12
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #2

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.

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 util…

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.

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#26

Post by skazazes »

tokai wrote: post #11

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

Isn't basic conditioning the point the artist is attempting to make? I interpreted the project as pointing out that social media uses fundamentally similar reward mechanisms as we use in training animals

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#27

Post by ta988 »

ravenstine wrote: post #13
tokai wrote: post #11

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

Even that is attributing too much. When you give animals food, they tend to do things to get that food, humans being no exception. If you plant a soft-serve machine in the middle of a city square, you can bet people will press the lever to receive free ice cream. Hell, just give out coupons for free anything and people will show up. In either case, if you take away the free thing, people will keep returning in hopes…

When you give human likes...

Re: Artist trained rats to take selfies to make a point about social media

#28

Post by tokai »

skazazes wrote: post #26
tokai wrote: post #11

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

Isn't basic conditioning the point the artist is attempting to make? I interpreted the project as pointing out that social media uses fundamentally similar reward mechanisms as we use in training animals

Yes, and I'm saying I'm finding his point weak. It is a old and well know experiment and the social-media-is-a-skinnerbox talking point is as old as social media. I find the selfie angle tacked on without adding or illuminating the subject further. The work doesn't work for me. But I appreciate the cute rat photos.
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