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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

#71

Post by araes »

sixothree wrote: post #32
throw__away7391 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It may be that at least part of the story was that some animals had issues purely with CRT technologies. A shift from shooting electrons through a window, to source pixels of very specific frequencies, may have been better.

For example, this spectral comparison implies there is a rather large difference in the color experience of watching CRT vs LCD. Very pronounced and spikey red component vs smooth gaussians. Canines are notorious for issues with red colors.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alireza-Shahsafi/public...

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

#72

Post by docfort »

svara wrote: post #62
TacticalCoder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is basically just a misunderstanding. There are multiple overlapping effects. Most of the 'hard' numbers for claims along those lines come from the flicker fusion frequency [0] around 50 Hz or so, which means that a video recorded at 25 fps and replayed by flashing every frame twice (like in old movie theaters) will not appear to flicker. However, there's another important factor, which is that if you move an ed…

There is research on humans showing that we can perceive at 500 Hz. There are devices that try to simulate a color by modulating a single LED (no color filter) and they don’t work on humans until you go past around 1 kHz.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07861

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

#73

Post by bashmelek »

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 guess I don’t really see this as hacker news material. Popular media aggregators tend to promote these kinds of statement art projects. I suppose I’m a little weary and wary of it all. I do not need a sanctioned individual—that we must know an Artist or Philosopher did this—to command some reaction from me on a rather tired topic.

One might argue that the fact we still argue over something shows the need for such art. Perhaps some people could use that slightest nudge. But I find these works often subtly disingenuous, and maybe serve better to reinforce a crowd’s own thinking. Like I heard taking shallow versions of opposing views tends to just strengthen already held beliefs, might some art be the same?

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

#74

Post by lukan »

moolcool wrote: post #68
lukan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, it seems a bit dishonest to imply that the rats wanted the selfies(I got that impression), when all they wanted was pressing the button, because they learned, it would produce treats reliable, and later at least sometimes. If at some point, there never would be treats coming anymore, that would uncondition themself and at some further point, they would not care about that stupid button anymore. Unless o…

I don't see how it's dishonest. The artist is transparent in his methodology, and the metaphor (engagement = treats) is clear. Either way, this is an art piece so it isn't subject to the same kinds of rigor or scrutiny of a scientific experiment.

"For me, they're really like performers, you know? They perform for the camera," he said. "They look cute."

Yeah, it is art. It wants to be interesting nested in many layers. I still don't buy this.

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

#75

Post by svara »

docfort wrote: post #72
svara wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically just a misunderstanding. There are multiple overlapping effects. Most of the 'hard' numbers for claims along those lines come from the flicker fusion frequency [0] around 50 Hz or so, which means that a video recorded at 25 fps and replayed by flashing every frame twice (like in old movie theaters) will not appear to flicker. However, there's another important factor, which is that if you move an ed…

There is research on humans showing that we can perceive at 500 Hz. There are devices that try to simulate a color by modulating a single LED (no color filter) and they don’t work on humans until you go past around 1 kHz. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07861

Yes, that's what I was referring to. If you have an edge flickering at a high frequency and perform a saccade (fast eye movement) over the edge, your retina will be exposed to the edge at regularly spaced intervals. So the motion will not appear smooth. That's what they call a 'flicker artifact' and I called a 'stroboscope-like effect'.

Importantly though, this is not us humans detecting 500 Hz flicker itself, quite the opposite -- the reason the artifact is visible is that our retina is not sensitive to fast motion, it integrates over a period of time in which the edge appears to be in multiple locations.

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

#76

Post by dmonitor »

lukan wrote: post #74
moolcool wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's dishonest. The artist is transparent in his methodology, and the metaphor (engagement = treats) is clear. Either way, this is an art piece so it isn't subject to the same kinds of rigor or scrutiny of a scientific experiment.

"For me, they're really like performers, you know? They perform for the camera," he said. "They look cute." Yeah, it is art. It wants to be interesting nested in many layers. I still don't buy this.

you're allowed to disagree with the message of the piece

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

#77

Post by lukan »

dmonitor wrote: post #76
lukan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For me, they're really like performers, you know? They perform for the camera," he said. "They look cute." Yeah, it is art. It wants to be interesting nested in many layers. I still don't buy this.

you're allowed to disagree with the message of the piece

Here I disagree and criticize, how it is promoted.

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

#78

Post by sbergot »

sixothree wrote: post #32
throw__away7391 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

My border collie dog was definitely interested by any sheep appearing on my old CRT.

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

#80

Post by omoikane »

Is it still called a "selfie" if the rats don't get to see the resulting pictures? The dictionaries I consulted define "selfie" as the photographic output, and not the act of taking pictures.[1][2]

I don't see any display device in that setup, so it seems the rats are just pressing buttons for sugar, independent of any camera activity.

[1] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/selfie_n

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfie

Edit: Looks like I just didn't see the screen but it's there.

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