- #1
Chaos' lil bro Order
- 683
- 2
Many people think of animals as stupid and capable of learning only through conditioning without the ability to make creative leaps. My question is are there any instances where an animal has tried to train a human successfully? Most human would be to blithe to even entertain the notion that their pet was actually trying to teach them something.
Here is my personal example of how I think my pet Cockatiel (small parrot like bird) may be trying to teach me. His name is Crikey and he really likes having his face and head scratched. I taught him that when I move my finger in a certain way that its time for him to excpect a head scratching. The finger motion is an upside-down 'come here' motion. Picture your hand, palmside down, with your index finger curling, uncurling, curling, uncurling, etc., that is the motion. Once Crikey sees this conditioning he bends his head downwards to present the top of his head.
Then I find I am doing work on my kitchen table and he will walk over to me near my hand and he will bend his head downwards, in expectation that I will then scratch his head. One could easily dismiss this as an example of conditioning (and maybe it is) but to my mind the key is that the bird thinks of the idea first then actually uses what he knows of my behaviours to condition me into scratching him.
Think of Pavlov's dog walking up to Pavlov and salivating. Pavlov never rang the bell or cooked a mouth watering meal, the dog preempts the conditioning and consciously decides he is hungry and his owner knows his mouth waters when he is hungry, so his owner should know to feed him now based on a history of memories.
Here is my personal example of how I think my pet Cockatiel (small parrot like bird) may be trying to teach me. His name is Crikey and he really likes having his face and head scratched. I taught him that when I move my finger in a certain way that its time for him to excpect a head scratching. The finger motion is an upside-down 'come here' motion. Picture your hand, palmside down, with your index finger curling, uncurling, curling, uncurling, etc., that is the motion. Once Crikey sees this conditioning he bends his head downwards to present the top of his head.
Then I find I am doing work on my kitchen table and he will walk over to me near my hand and he will bend his head downwards, in expectation that I will then scratch his head. One could easily dismiss this as an example of conditioning (and maybe it is) but to my mind the key is that the bird thinks of the idea first then actually uses what he knows of my behaviours to condition me into scratching him.
Think of Pavlov's dog walking up to Pavlov and salivating. Pavlov never rang the bell or cooked a mouth watering meal, the dog preempts the conditioning and consciously decides he is hungry and his owner knows his mouth waters when he is hungry, so his owner should know to feed him now based on a history of memories.