Chickens Agree: Left Means Less; Right Means More • Hacker News Board

Re: Chickens Agree: Left Means Less; Right Means More

#11

Post by eterm » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #10

One thing that interests me, though the article and study don't touch on it, is that we as humans tend to visualize our number lines on the X axis (e.g. left and right), rather than the Y axis (up and down), Z axis (forward and backward), or W axis (ana and kata). I know there are some writing systems in which writing is done up/down rather than left/right. I wonder how that influences the spatial visualization of nu…

I heard once[1] that whether people visualize time on a left-right / x-axis or a back-front z-axis correlates to generally how organised they are.

[1]I don't have a source, so consider it "bloke down the pub" reliability.

Re: Chickens Agree: Left Means Less; Right Means More

#12

Post by cafard » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #11

jawns wrote: post #10

One thing that interests me, though the article and study don't touch on it, is that we as humans tend to visualize our number lines on the X axis (e.g. left and right), rather than the Y axis (up and down), Z axis (forward and backward), or W axis (ana and kata). I know there are some writing systems in which writing is done up/down rather than left/right. I wonder how that influences the spatial visualization of nu…

I heard once[1] that whether people visualize time on a left-right / x-axis or a back-front z-axis correlates to generally how organised they are. [1]I don't have a source, so consider it "bloke down the pub" reliability.

I think that the ancient Greeks envisioned the future coming from behind them. Of course, they didn't have a notion x-axis, did they?

Re: Chickens Agree: Left Means Less; Right Means More

#13

Post by pvaldes » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #9

thret wrote: post #7

“We cannot think of any other, and simpler, explanation for the behavior of the chicks" Dr. Rugani said in an email. -- Is anyone else skeptical about their findings? I am reminded of the Feynman story about the rat experiment by Mr. Young. http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experim...

My favorite line from the article: >The scientists trained 64 chicks to find a mealworm behind a plastic panel with five red squares on it (16 chicks were disqualified after showing “poor mealworm-following behavior,” the researchers wrote).

agree, the 16 left-winged superbrain chickens with X-ray eyes where disqualified... :-)