> Over three months, 66 chimps tried and failed to solve the puzzle. Then the Dutch-led team of researchers trained two demonstrator chimpanzees to show the others how it was done. After two months, 14 "naive" chimps had mastered it.
So 14 out of 64 chimps learned a relatively simple trick after two months of "cumulative culture" exposure. Just over a 20% success rate?
> Thornton said the research again showed how "people habitually overestimate their abilities relative to those of other animals".
People learn how to tile floors, install dishwashers, change their cars oil filter, build websites etc. all from mediocre youtube videos. I don't think I'm overestimating humans "abilities relative to those of other animals" ...
Also, the human scientists figured out ape intelligence to the point where they can design puzzles that are too hard for the apes to solve, and they figured out how to use that to further study the apes. Underestimate the apes? These scientists seem to be absolutely dunking on the poor little guys. They should go pick on orcas or some other actually clever species.
The bee results are suss. Bees use pheromones to mark things so there may be no socially learned behavior beyond seeking food at a marked source which is built in. There's also the small sample size which the article mentions. It is still cool that they learned the blue/red trick in the first place either way.
Oh, it's for sure not a done deal. But IIRC bees are known to have at least some capacity for memory, in terms of seeking out known food sources that go beyond just following a pheromone marker. I don't know if the mechanism behind this is well understood, but going by the blue/red trick it seems like they can to some extent 'learn' to recognize various types of flowers and seek them out by memory. Whether this type of information is transferable between bees in ways /other/ than a pheromone marker that guides other bees to the same immediate sensory experience of "blue flower = good nectar source", I don't know. But it's intriguing!
Also worth noting that bees can transfer navigational information to eachother by 'waggle dancing', so they have multiple possible vectors for information sharing going for them.
I am a dog owner, my gf is a dog owner. My dog does this very particular thing when he wants attention and my gfs dog have started doing the same after some time.
Humans may be good at learning from others and pick up stuff fast but that don't automatically mean we're unique in our ability to do so. This idea that humans are so special feels very odd to me.
Social transmission of behavior in macaques has been documented since the 1950s. See the potato washing studies of Imanishi et al (ref. #9 in the main paper).
Does this necessarily mean "learning" in the sense that humans use that word?
Approximately 15 millions years ago, leafcutter ants completed the 30 million year process of domesticating another species [1] (something also done by ambrosia beetles and termites, not just humans) - the Leucoagaricus gongylophorus fungus cultivated by the adults is used to feed the ant larvae, and the adult ants feed on leaf sap. The fungus needs the ants to stay alive, and the larvae need the fungus to stay alive, so mutualism is obligatory. All with 250,000 neurons!
Whether it was the fungus that domesticated the ant or the ant that domesticated the fungus, can passing on this skill also be considered a learned activity?
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So 14 out of 64 chimps learned a relatively simple trick after two months of "cumulative culture" exposure. Just over a 20% success rate?
> Thornton said the research again showed how "people habitually overestimate their abilities relative to those of other animals".
People learn how to tile floors, install dishwashers, change their cars oil filter, build websites etc. all from mediocre youtube videos. I don't think I'm overestimating humans "abilities relative to those of other animals" ...
Also, the human scientists figured out ape intelligence to the point where they can design puzzles that are too hard for the apes to solve, and they figured out how to use that to further study the apes. Underestimate the apes? These scientists seem to be absolutely dunking on the poor little guys. They should go pick on orcas or some other actually clever species.
Building websites or tiling floors (well) are much more complicated than following a set of instructions for changing an oil filter.
What percentage of humans could build a website purely from watching a few tutorials? Certainly not 100%.
Your comment makes me think that, indeed, humans do overestimate our abilities.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24955780
Also worth noting that bees can transfer navigational information to eachother by 'waggle dancing', so they have multiple possible vectors for information sharing going for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance
Humans may be good at learning from others and pick up stuff fast but that don't automatically mean we're unique in our ability to do so. This idea that humans are so special feels very odd to me.
My dog learned more stuff from hanging out with other dogs than I could teach it on my own.
If someone wants to train a dog best to have already trained dog to pass that just like shepherds did for centuries I guess.
Dolphins also use sexual coercion (amongst humans, we would call it rape) and the behavior is violent. Dolphins also commit infanticide.
Does this necessarily mean "learning" in the sense that humans use that word?
Approximately 15 millions years ago, leafcutter ants completed the 30 million year process of domesticating another species [1] (something also done by ambrosia beetles and termites, not just humans) - the Leucoagaricus gongylophorus fungus cultivated by the adults is used to feed the ant larvae, and the adult ants feed on leaf sap. The fungus needs the ants to stay alive, and the larvae need the fungus to stay alive, so mutualism is obligatory. All with 250,000 neurons!
Whether it was the fungus that domesticated the ant or the ant that domesticated the fungus, can passing on this skill also be considered a learned activity?
[1] - https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/crop-domestication-bala...