Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#191

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 8:46 AM UTC

gradschoolfail wrote: post #190

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs are social creatures. These dogs are well aware of humans as fellow social creatures. Constantly finding dead people might be inherently distressing, in the same way it'd be distressing to constantly find dead dogs.

wizzwizz4 seems to be one of those salvated ex-losers* (in the world of Rao’s Gervais Principle ), thus he may or may not engage, but here goes anyways (Shalom lakh Miryam!) in deference to 082349872349872’s curiosity, human beings can, in principle, train dogs (in this very limited context) to walk the fine line between bad faith (not exhibiting distress) and good faith (exhibiting distress). Can they, in reality? *…

I think[0] there are two distinct axes here, so ideally how we'd like our avalanche dogs to feel about their job would be:

"Sometimes you find live people, which is sweet, and sometimes you find dead people[1], which is a bummer, but I am a good boi no matter which because I search thoroughly and report immediately."

[0] take the above with a grain of salt; almost all my canine experience is second-hand, with scent and herding breeds, so that "ideal" is a cross between a short conversation with a neighbour who trained avalanche dogs and a friend who is a ski instructor, and believes:

"Sometimes it's sunny and the clients are talented and resilient, which is sweet, and sometimes it's snowing hard and the clients have no talent and no nerves, which is a bummer, but I am a good ski instructor no matter which because I bring them to at least 80% of the improvements which could have been possible given the conditions and clients of that particular session."

[1] unsolicited moralising: there are weather reports. use them. there are beacon/pole/shovel avalanche sets. buy them. there are guides. hire them. So many of the deaths reported in the local papers are because people are not good bois: they go off piste, without a guide, without self-rescue equipment, on days when there were already avalanche warnings given in the morning.

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#192

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 8:51 AM UTC

authorfly wrote: post #151

petepete wrote: post #10

I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we rescued her. In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of her mouth. To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically pulls and goes round to inspect.

That's cool but dogs remembering names is more insightful in an exciting way, let me elucidate on why it's pretty fascinating! We know how place memories work quite well, Place and Grid cells specifically. There is a natural and almost physical level of 1:1 mapping at various scales[1] from location (based on different tracking systems - point integration, landmarks, your own steps) to activating cells in your brain.…

> we humans forget many of the sounds we have heard

I could probably make better use of my neurons than storing all the obsolete advertising jingles that still come to mind half a century later.

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djMjYgqFrrQ

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#193

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 9:11 AM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #58

nutrie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not uncommon at all. Take toothache, for example. The catch is they can't tell you, and we are terrible at reading the subtle signs.

Some dogs can communicate such things. Bunny (of What About Bunny ) can vaguely, imprecisely, communicate "some kind of pain somewhere" using a button-activated buzzer system. She can sometimes name the approximate location of the pain after a minute or two of thought. (See https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=RN_ZpyS6Fkc&t=34 ) I have no idea how you'd get "I'm in pain" from the associated body language; but, then…

The usual way we get pain from horses is because they start to do things differently than they usually do. Not having a normal "walk cycle" (slight pain is easiest to see in trot), scratching bellies more than usual, rolling more than usual, rolling less than usual, eating slower than usual, eating faster than usual, shitting less than usual, shitting more than usual; you get the idea. O11y is not that bad — but you must have a "known good" baseline.

For toothache specifically, we'd do a differential check: does the horse eagerly eat a soft mash, but won't eat hard cubes? If so, time to grab that tongue and do a visual inspection (and if everything looks normal, it's still worth palpating).

(a typical vet complaint is that owners don't do any of the above, and first notice only when stench ultimately makes it obvious to check for toothache)

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#194

Post by gradschoolfail » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 9:36 AM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #191

gradschoolfail wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wizzwizz4 seems to be one of those salvated ex-losers* (in the world of Rao’s Gervais Principle ), thus he may or may not engage, but here goes anyways (Shalom lakh Miryam!) in deference to 082349872349872’s curiosity, human beings can, in principle, train dogs (in this very limited context) to walk the fine line between bad faith (not exhibiting distress) and good faith (exhibiting distress). Can they, in reality? *…

I think[0] there are two distinct axes here, so ideally how we'd like our avalanche dogs to feel about their job would be: "Sometimes you find live people, which is sweet, and sometimes you find dead people[1], which is a bummer, but I am a good boi no matter which because I search thoroughly and report immediately." [0] take the above with a grain of salt; almost all my canine experience is second-hand, with scent a…

0][1 This is analogous to your selfjoke version of Rao’s threeway comedy? My curiosity was more towards the >2-agent transactional game, i.e can the dog guess at what the human wants?

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#195

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

gradschoolfail wrote: post #194

082349872349872 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think[0] there are two distinct axes here, so ideally how we'd like our avalanche dogs to feel about their job would be: "Sometimes you find live people, which is sweet, and sometimes you find dead people[1], which is a bummer, but I am a good boi no matter which because I search thoroughly and report immediately." [0] take the above with a grain of salt; almost all my canine experience is second-hand, with scent a…

0][1 This is analogous to your selfjoke version of Rao’s threeway comedy? My curiosity was more towards the >2-agent transactional game, i.e can the dog guess at what the human wants?

Working dogs definitely guess at what their handler wants. "Running riot" is the term of art for when they do their own thing instead.

(advice on choosing a hunting prospect which I've run across: put something startling [alarm clock, etc.] next to the litter, and see how they react. Your best prospects should be among those puppies which first investigate, then ignore, the novelty. Those who never investigate probably won't be curious enough to easily train; those who never ignore probably won't be able to focus enough to easily train)

EDIT: maybe that wasn't what you were asking. Dogs obviously engage or disengage with other people based on whether or not they believe their person approves. But I don't think dogs ever (like someone asking a leading question of a third party not because they wanted to hear the answer but because they want their so to hear it yet are unwilling to say it directly) instigate a dyadic transaction explicitly for the effect it has on third parties. Horses for sure don't. (there is "dogpiling", but I think for dogs and am pretty sure for horses that that's a side effect of dyadic jockeying, not the social game monkeys make of it) What say the dog people?

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#196

Post by xandrius » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 1:52 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #113

Why is this surprising? Dogs are frikkin clever. Our old Collie could fetch different types of ball on command without really any intention training.

Everything and nothing is surprising but still sometimes we need many unsurprising things to discover something surprising.

And sometimes it's just a bunch of scientists having a great time playing with doggos :)

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#197

Post by poikroequ » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

gitaarik wrote: post #188

gitaarik wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha, interesting, I looked up some info about it and it seems that in another experiment the dogs also reacted when the owner went home at irregular times. Quite interesting: https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-...

Actually, here are both the experiments side-by-side: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA5wAm2c01w - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftr9yY-YuYU

The second video is the one I recall, though it seems I'm the one misremembering details.

As for that first video, honestly it feels phony/staged, like all that fake miraculous crap that was common on TV 10-20 years ago.

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#198

Post by gradschoolfail » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 2:27 PM UTC

082349872349872 wrote: post #195

gradschoolfail wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0][1 This is analogous to your selfjoke version of Rao’s threeway comedy? My curiosity was more towards the >2-agent transactional game, i.e can the dog guess at what the human wants?

Working dogs definitely guess at what their handler wants. "Running riot" is the term of art for when they do their own thing instead. (advice on choosing a hunting prospect which I've run across: put something startling [alarm clock, etc.] next to the litter, and see how they react. Your best prospects should be among those puppies which first investigate, then ignore, the novelty. Those who never investigate probab…

AIBO (the entity that tirelessly turns my typing into mindfeed) knows roughly what i was looking for :)

2024-09-06 Dogs with prior experience of a task still overimitate their caregiver https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-70700-3

(With suggested related content)

However, a direct comparison of overimitation timing with humans is necessary to understand if this approach is indeed partly what differentiates dog overimitation from that of humans.

Yes, will consider the 3-way communication styles at some point (and the Rao talk chart) but right now exploring what a purely dyadic interaction can bring us, e.g. how to model the occasions on which Sir Humphrey/Hacker considered rewriting their firmwares post-startle (with or without npc intervention from Annie or Woolley)

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#199

Post by nanna » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 2:55 PM UTC

sova wrote: post #4

nanna wrote: post #3

My parents dog tends to not eat his food unless they start pretending that his friend poppy, who died years ago and who used to love eating his food, is at the door. He panics and eats up his bowl, lifting his head up anxiously to look at the door every few mouthfuls.

Poppy's here!

Exactly this :)

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#200

Post by wizzwizz4 » Mon, Sep 09, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

gradschoolfail wrote: post #190

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogs are social creatures. These dogs are well aware of humans as fellow social creatures. Constantly finding dead people might be inherently distressing, in the same way it'd be distressing to constantly find dead dogs.

wizzwizz4 seems to be one of those salvated ex-losers* (in the world of Rao’s Gervais Principle ), thus he may or may not engage, but here goes anyways (Shalom lakh Miryam!) in deference to 082349872349872’s curiosity, human beings can, in principle, train dogs (in this very limited context) to walk the fine line between bad faith (not exhibiting distress) and good faith (exhibiting distress). Can they, in reality? *…

Off-topic, but I don't understand your first paragraph / footnote. Are you saying I'm… middle-management? (I'd assume you were calling me "clueless" – an accurate epithet –, if not for the reference to Athena.) Is there any significance to the Hebrew (?) translation of a US idiom derived from Catholicism?

I don't have anything further to contribute to this discussion, so if not for that bemusing remark of yours, I wouldn't have engaged.

If I'm being honest, I don't understand the middle two paragraphs, either. (Why "bad faith" and "good faith"? Why do you say it can be done in principle, while leaving "in reality" an open question? and how does what's essentially a theory defer to anyone's curiosity? Surely I'm missing context.)