• Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    There are classic papers on these topics. I highly recommend the Brelands for the laughs. https://psych.hanover.edu/classes/Learning/papers/Breland and Breland 1961.pdf

    Basically not all animals are trainable, and not all are trainable in the same ways. And the training may only be phase before the behavior becomes unmanageable. The linked paper has multiple examples of stimulus substitution where the animal appears to learn the task for awhile, but then everts to untrained behavior because the conditional stimulus is substituted for the unconditional stimulus.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
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      3 months ago

      You know, I wanted to be some level of zoologist or field ethologist before my disease kicked in heavily, pretty much ruining my chances of making a career of it. Still, for most of my life I’ve been fascinated by animals and zoology, and have certainly come across the observations you mention.

      then everts to untrained behavior because the conditional stimulus is substituted for the unconditional stimulus.

      That’s a really good point IMO, and is something so easy to stumble up on, at least as an amateur trainer and whatnot. Sideways-related, it’s crazy to me how many tourists annually lose their lives in contact with wild animals, thinking that it’s a ‘petting-zoo’ situation.

      Anyway, we may have different inflections upon the cat issue, but I think we’re more or less in the ballpark.

      Btw, here’s my favorite webgame du jour. One gets a certain amount of clues and a certain amount of guesses to name the animal, based on the Linnean classification first, with increasingly helpful clues and decreasing points available. It’s tricky! Maybe you’d like it:

      https://www.wildguess.co.za/