There is little news that elevates giraffes. It appeared last week in Scientific reports that Stady for the statistical skills of giraffes. Everything, absolutely everything in this article is meant to make you very happy.
For example, the researchers used clear containers containing 100 carrots and 20 zucchini pieces or 20 carrots and 100 zucchini pieces. all of thatVases with red and blue balls. I also learned from this study that giraffes like carrots and don’t like zucchini very much.
This was the aim of the study design. A giraffe was shown two transparent containers containing different numbers of carrots and pieces of zucchini. Then the experimenter hid a piece of food from a container in one hand and a piece of food from the other container in the other hand. The giraffe couldn’t see what was in her hand. Did the giraffe pick the hand that had the highest chance of getting a carrot? In short, by looking at the container, can the giraffe determine the ratio of carrots to zucchini pieces and choose which hand took the food from the container in the best ratio?
About the author
Ionika Smits is Professor of Communication Sciences at Leiden University. She is a mathematician and columnist since 2009 De Volkskrant.
Humans can do this (usually) as well as some species of monkeys and parakeets (macaws) are capable of this type of thinking. They have relatively large brains, unlike giraffes. There seems to be a measure of the brain size of an animal relative to the brain size you would expect based on the total body size of that animal. This measure has the wonderful name of encephalization quotient. In humans, the quotient is somewhere around 7.6. Chimpanzees are around 2.5, keas are around 1.4 and giraffes have to make do with a paltry 0.64.
But you guessed it, with that relatively small brain in that imposing body, the four giraffes in this study were able to choose the reservoir that offered the most opportunity for a tasty carrot. One giraffe even managed it when, to make things trickier, a piece of cardboard was halfway across the container. there all Good video Designed by the experience where you see a giraffe in action
The researchers examined whether giraffes did not secretly select the right hand in some other way, for example by smell. However, he was also reminded of Hans Kluger, a horse who seemed to be able to count over a hundred years ago, but was actually responding to subconscious cues from the people standing next to him. When I see a video like this cute giraffe, I wonder if there is no Clogger Hans effect here. After all, the researcher knows what the correct answer is, doesn’t he give subconscious hints to the giraffe? Could the double-blind study not be repeated? Doesn’t it take more than four giraffes to get it right?
More research is needed. Preferably with giraffe videos. I am already looking forward to it.
