[HN Gopher] Cuttlefish remember the what, when, and where of mea... ___________________________________________________________________ Cuttlefish remember the what, when, and where of meals, even into old age Author : Petiver Score : 58 points Date : 2021-08-20 04:42 UTC (18 hours ago) (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com) (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com) | scotty79 wrote: | I've seen large cuttlefish in a very large tank in Sydney | oceanarium. It was a slow day so I was alone in front of that | tank. I played hide and seek through the glass with this cuttle | fish as if it was a dog. It was curious, playful and mesmerizing | with its weird eyes, wavy fins and color changing skin. | [deleted] | abdulhaq wrote: | They also have a very refined palette, which is why they are | often found in top restaurants | ghostpepper wrote: | *palate | yawz wrote: | I would recommend Peter Godfrey-Smith's book called Other Minds | to appreciate further how fascinating these animals are (the book | talks about other cephalopods like octopus too). | alaxsxaq wrote: | If you live 1-2 years, as cuttlefish do, is it really that | amazing that their memory does not fade between birth and death? | carabiner wrote: | I don't remember what I ate two weeks ago, unless it's some | special dinner, so yeah. Every day I grapple with this awkward | moment between birth and death. | krisoft wrote: | > I don't remember what I ate two weeks ago | | But that is not what they test the cutlefish on! They check | if they seem to recall foraging patterns. In case of a modern | human a foraging pattern would be knowing how to get to a | grocery store, select the items you like, perform the higly | abstract ritual of "paying at the cashier", get back home and | prepare the food. | | Do you have problems finding your regular grocery store? Can | you recall your personal preferences as you are staring at | the items? Did it ever happen that you went home and couldnt | figure out how to prepare what you usually do? If you can | pass all of these you would probably also pass the test these | cuttlefish passed. | | If you also exhibit seasonal patterns in your foraging, like | for example preparing a turkey once a year, or going wild for | pumpkin spice latte in certain seasons then you are over | performing really. | | If you have ever drove past a grocery store just to get to | your favourite pizza place that shows that you are able to | delay your gratification. Heck, even if you just were able to | drive home from the grocery store to warm some food up shows | that already. | | I understand that these all feel flippant, but we didn't | asked the cuttlefish what they had for breakfast. We observed | how they behave, how they feed themselves. Most healthy | humans would also pass similar observations and tests with | flying colours. | RappingBoomer wrote: | yeah, most of the details of my life, I cannot recall, even | recent ones...however, on the other hand, my wife remembers | minor mistakes I made 20 years ago | ryanianian wrote: | Let's be honest we all remember a stupid thing we said or | did 20 years ago. | | TFA briefly mentions the hippocampus owning these kinds of | episodic memories in humans although cuttlefish don't have | hippocampuses(i?). | | It's weird how "embarrassment trauma" memories can last so | long and can force that sort of weird _ooph_ sigh every | time we recall them. | | Perhaps cuttlefish experience every meal as an embarrassing | memory. (Kidding but only kind of. The experience of | memories is interesting - Radio Lab did a series on it | iirc.) | r721 wrote: | Relevant HN discussion from 2019: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21171324 | ripper1138 wrote: | One difference is that eating is such a normal and low effort | activity for us that there is no point for the brain to | remember it. But if you were surviving in the wild, I bet | you'd have much better memory of meals since they would all | be somewhat 'special' in the sense that you are still alive! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-20 23:00 UTC)