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Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

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Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#81

Post by zvmaz »

amatecha wrote: post #5

Made me think of this video where a parrot is watching YouTube videos it likes, changing to different ones, and seeming angry when ads (or the owner lol) interrupt its video-watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSNhJcKFf4

Incredible!

So much that is fascinating about non-human animals. I can't resist but think that there's a deep similarity between us, and them. One that we even don't suspect. Reminds me of Tom Regan's words:

"Animals have a past, a story, a biography. They have histories. Mink and bears, elephants and dolphins, pigs and chickens, cats and dogs: each is a unique somebody, not a disposable something."

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#82

Post by rzimmerman »

amatecha wrote: post #6
abruzzi wrote: post #3

My pet Mitred Conure (Leonard) loves to mess with my iPad while I'm reading. On the other had, Leonard >hates< my iPhone. If he's on my shoulder he'll engage in a agressive display waving around and violently biting my shirt. If the phone is close enough to him he will attack the phone. I'm an extremely light phone user so its not like I ignore him when using the phone, but I do expect it is the size makes it competi…

I have a family member with a cockatoo (goffin) and it's generally afraid when someone has a phone in their hand. Pretty strange, we haven't figured out exactly what the issue is. Placing the phone down on a table to play some music seems fine, but it seems like once the phone is in someone's hands and moving around, maybe it resembles some kind of predator?? No clue!

We have a budgie (parakeet, a very small bird) that is obsessed with phones. Honestly anything reflective gets him going, but if you even reach for your pocket to pull your phone out he flies to you.

He just flirts with the phone and I haven't seen him try to use it. But if we put a picture of another budgie on the screen he will give it a gentle kiss. He's not as smart as some of these big birds, but there's a lot more depth than I would have ever expected. He has different phrases he uses for different people, and even a set that he exclusively says to videos of himself on an iPhone.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#83

Post by eru »

miriam_catira wrote: post #74
082349872349872 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are all equal to the same amount This may be modern schooling at work. I've heard that one motivating factor for the ancient egyptian's strange-to-us mathematical style ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_fraction ) is that when they divvied stuff up, they needed to do it in a way that was more obviously fair than we do. Example: we have four workers on our gang and need to pay them with 3L of beer and 3 loave…

Oh this is by no means limited to ancient times, try giving any two young children the same amount of food, but cut into different sized pieces - smaller cuts result in more pieces than the larger cuts... Guaranteed meltdown. :)

That's a good time as any to learn that might makes right.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#84

Post by bdw5204 »

amatecha wrote: post #5

Made me think of this video where a parrot is watching YouTube videos it likes, changing to different ones, and seeming angry when ads (or the owner lol) interrupt its video-watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSNhJcKFf4

I love how the parrot has no patience whatsoever for ads and cable news. If more humans were like that parrot, Youtube would be a much better platform.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#85

Post by vasco »

bdw5204 wrote: post #84
amatecha wrote: post #5

Made me think of this video where a parrot is watching YouTube videos it likes, changing to different ones, and seeming angry when ads (or the owner lol) interrupt its video-watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSNhJcKFf4

I love how the parrot has no patience whatsoever for ads and cable news. If more humans were like that parrot, Youtube would be a much better platform.

I was going to make a joke about PMs at Google looking at product experiment results based on parrot engagement - but I'm not sure their work would change at all actually, and that might be the joke about Google product development.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#86

Post by saaaaaam »

Jensson wrote: post #73
simonklitj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this more of a limitation of our ability to communicate with the animals? If we could talk intelligibly with a crow, maybe we could teach it? Conversely, if our communication with a 7-year-old child were limited to the level we achieve with crows, could we teach the child and know for sure that they understand it?

> could we teach the child and know for sure that they understand it? Yes, children aren't born knowing languages so you teach the child the language and then you can see it understands it. You don't need to share a language to teach language. We haven't been able to teach any animal language at even 4 year level, so animals at least doesn't have the same level of language intelligence as humans do.

We’ve not been able to reach any animal language at a four year old level that they can speak but I think we have taught animals language at a level that they are able to understand? Though I guess we can’t necessarily prove that understanding.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#87

Post by [deleted] »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #65
RajT88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine's mother used to keep parrots, and I remember the biggest and oldest one well (an African grey). I still remember the playful "clip!" sound it would make as I walked past the cage, and it would lean towards me, trying to take a chunk out of me.

Yep. The bigger parrots (macaws & large cockatoos) are more like bolt cutters for a face. I used to volunteer at a parrot rescue when I lived near one, we'd feed the hyacinth macaws unopened macadamia nuts. They'd crack the shells seemingly without effort.

[deleted]

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#88

Post by CobrastanJorji »

Given the science that parrots are extremely social, this evidence that they enjoy calling each other, and the sheer number of wealthy people that own exactly one parrot, I expect that one of you is surely going to launch a social network for parrots any day now, and it will probably make money.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#89

Post by Omniusaspirer »

miriam_catira wrote: post #74
082349872349872 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are all equal to the same amount This may be modern schooling at work. I've heard that one motivating factor for the ancient egyptian's strange-to-us mathematical style ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_fraction ) is that when they divvied stuff up, they needed to do it in a way that was more obviously fair than we do. Example: we have four workers on our gang and need to pay them with 3L of beer and 3 loave…

Oh this is by no means limited to ancient times, try giving any two young children the same amount of food, but cut into different sized pieces - smaller cuts result in more pieces than the larger cuts... Guaranteed meltdown. :)

The simple solution- have one cut the food in half, but the other gets to choose their half first from the two.

Re: Parrots love playing tablet games. That's helping researchers understand them

#90

Post by spaceman_2020 »

amatecha wrote: post #5

Made me think of this video where a parrot is watching YouTube videos it likes, changing to different ones, and seeming angry when ads (or the owner lol) interrupt its video-watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSNhJcKFf4

Always weird to me how parrots and crows evolved to be so much smarter than the rest of the birds

There is a small park right outside my house and I constantly see crows just clowning around on other birds. I’ve seen them harass eagles just for fun and casually take food from pigeons.

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