The Evolution of Personality
January 19, 2012In my book, Evolution and the Emergent Self, I examine four animal groups with high relative brain size (high brain weight in comparison to body weight), and find that they have a variety of qualities in common even though they have very different evolutionary histories and live in different environments: chimpanzees, dolphins, corvids (mainly ravens and crows), and elephants. There is a remarkable convergence of behavior: They all have long-term relationships and complex societies with "politics" in which two or more individuals may form alliances against others. They appear to consider what others are thinking and can form flexible plans of deception. Hunting can involve different roles for different members that are coordinated with each other. They have complex communication with the possibility of understanding syntax in learned instructions.
Each of these species has a long period of juvenile dependency that allows for a slowly maturing nervous system that is capable of flexibility and innovation into the adult years. The variability of learning creates individual differences between members of a species and local cultural differences between groups. There is insight learning that finds quick solutions to novel problems faster than we would expect from trial and error alone.
At one level, we can simply say a more complex nervous system leads to more complex behavior. But I go further and suggest that there is an emergent self that seeks to express itself in more complex communication and social relationships, and values others of its kind more fully as individuals than do species with smaller relative brain size. We see this in long-term relationships, in what looks like mourning at the death of a conspecific, in helping behavior toward non-relatives, and in forming higher order coalitions in society. Evidence of mirror self-recognition in all four groups fits this picture of an emergent self that views itself and others with greater objectivity.
This emergent self also expresses itself in intricate manipulation of its environment. Each species has high dexterity, but the appendage employed varies widely due to their different evolutionary origins, from a hand to a beak, a trunk, or a flipper. What is constant is a large brain that is expressing itself.
This large brain also appears capable of abstraction. Each of these species is skilled at mimicry, and it could be argued that this involves a concept of the other that serves as a model. It suggests that there is a mental representation of some part of the model, such as its voice or movements, that the individual is trying to match. There also appear to be mental representations in tool making. The termite fishing sticks of chimpanzees and the leaf tools of the New Caledonian crows are made to standardized sizes that suggest preset concepts of length and width. They may then be carried long distances where they are just the right dimensions for the task at hand. This suggests a mental representation of both tool form and the goal of its use.
An emergent self sees with greater objectivity, and it can mix and match categories with high flexibility. It can combine tools in novel ways and formulate new alliances in social life. It seems to view itself with greater objectivity, as evidenced by mirror self-recognition. I suggest a physical basis for this greater objectivity in the hierarchical arrangement of circuits in a large brain. We now know that the brain is modular, with specific areas devoted to specific functions like facial recognition or short-term memory. Animals with high brain-body ratios have more modules that can be devoted to functions beyond just physiological control. A hierarchical arrangement of these modules may lead to higher derivatives from the raw data, resulting in higher levels of objectivity.
Brains as well as genes can store information, and I suggest information content may be the defining quality that distinguishes two paradigm strategies of life. Organisms of high information content in genes or brains take longer to develop for the basic reason that complex things take longer to build than simple things. They have versatility of response built into the individual and can deal with a variety of fluctuations in the environment. They have many of the characteristics of species known in ecology as K- selected: small litters with slow development of the young, allowing a long period for learning, and fairly steady population numbers since individuals have a variety of skills to cope with change.
Organisms of lower information content in genes or brains tend to develop more quickly and are known in ecology as r-selected, opportunistic species. There is less parental investment per individual, but more are produced. They have shorter, less flexible programs, and many individuals may be sacrificed to find the combinations best suited to match new conditions. These individuals can quickly take over an environment so that populations go through characteristic “boom and bust” cycles.
Humans rely on an extreme form of a strategy found repeatedly in nature—the accumulation of information to increase the versatility of response to a changing environment. Programs are encoded not only in genes and brains, but in languages, books, and computers. Our current dominance on the planet, both for good and for ill, testifies to the power of information for mastery over nature. In this sense, human culture is not an anomaly, but an extension of K-selected strategies found repeatedly in nature. It might even be suggested that a species like us is inevitable if the evolutionary process is given enough time to run. All of nature is not laboring toward greater complexity because short programs with quick development are an alternative way of dealing with change. But it may not be too far-fetched to suggest that given the right conditions and enough time, a species like us is in the cards, and the seeds of consciousness are planted within the evolutionary process.
Adapted from Evolution and the Emergent Self by Raymond L. Neubauer. Copyright (c) 2012 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Metanexus - The Evolution of Personality
From Metanexus, this article is adapted from Raymond Neubauer's new book, Evolution and the Emergent Self: The Rise of Complexity and Behavioral Versatility in Nature. Neubauer looks at chimpanzees, dolphins, corvids (mainly ravens and crows), and elephants for the ways that their differing evolutionary histories have produced some similar cognitive and behavioral skills.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
NPR - A Researcher Asks: Are Dolphins Self-Aware?
Here is another cool segment from this week's NPR Talk of the Nation Science Friday. I have always been fascinated by the social and intellectual skills of dolphins, and I am reasonably convinced that they are as intelligent or more so than humans.
This discussion looks at their self-awareness, which is a trait we had generally ascribed only to humans, but appears to be much more prevalent in the animal kingdom, including marine mammals like dolphins, several primate species, elephants, crow and ravens, some species of parrots, and many others.
Diana Reiss is author of The Dolphin in the Mirror: Exploring Dolphin Minds and Saving Dolphin Lives.
A Researcher Asks: Are Dolphins Self-Aware?
Like chimpanzees, dolphins are large-brained and highly social animals, but can they recognize themselves in a mirror? Psychologist and dolphin researcher Diana Reiss discusses her work with dolphin communication and cognition.
* * * * * * *
IRA FLATOW, host: Moving from our brains, talking cerebrally now about the brains of dolphins. Humans and dolphins are separated by 95 million years of evolution, and in that time these mammals' hands and feet turned into fins. They developed more sophisticated features.
Did you know they have sonar, like bats? They can play complex games of Capture the Flag. We call it a piece of seaweed. And if you ever watch "Flipper," you know that they can make a wide array of clicks and whistles. But can that be language?
My next guest has been looking at these big-brained mammals much like others have looked at chimps and gorillas and studying them, figuring out what they can do. And she's written a new book. Diana Reiss is author of the new book "The Dolphin in the Mirror," and she's professor in the psychology department of Hunter College. She's also the biopsychology and behavioral neuroscience program at the graduate center at City University in New York. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
DIANA REISS: Hi, Ira, I'm thrilled to be here.
FLATOW: Tell us: How smart are these dolphins? What have they shown you over the years?
REISS: Well, they're really smart, and of course the challenge is always to try to understand intelligence of another species, particularly when they're so different, like a dolphin is. What is the nature of their intelligence? That's what I'm trying to find out.
FLATOW: And "The Dolphin in the Mirror," you named it that because of your research with them?
REISS: Correct. We - several years ago, my colleague and I put a mirror in front of a dolphin and wanted to know what would they do with it. What would they - would they know it's themselves? And again, this is a really - this is a rare cognitive ability in other animals. And they actually showed that, like us, they can recognize themselves in mirrors.
FLATOW: And you did research at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Is that where you studied your dolphins?
REISS: No, actually, my first lab was in California at a place called Marine World, when I...
FLATOW: Ah, Marine World.
REISS: Marine World, and what else? And then I was research director, director of marine mammal research at the New York Aquarium, the Osborn Labs for Marine Studies. And now I'm doing - I'm directing a program of dolphin research at the National Aquarium.
FLATOW: You know, we always say that people are different than other animals because they're self-aware, right?
REISS: Right.
FLATOW: Are dolphins self-aware?
REISS: Well, you know, it's interesting because when you think about self-awareness, most animals would have to have some form of awareness or they'd be bumping into each other and the walls and their environment. So we're talking about a particular kind of self-awareness, the sense of you can recognize that you are in that mirror, that that's an external representation of yourself. That's pretty sophisticated when you think about it. And most animals don't do it.
Most animals if they do pay attention to a mirror, which many don't, like dogs and cats generally don't, if they do, they think it's another of their own kind, and they'll show social behavior. With the dolphins, not only are they aware that it's themselves, and they show it to us behaviorally.
FLATOW: How? What do they do that they know that...
REISS: Yeah. So there are three stages. Should I break it down more simply?
FLATOW: Yeah.
REISS: The three stages are if they've never seen a mirror before, they try to look around it, look over it, figure out what this thing is, who's behind it, then they - if they've never seen a mirror, they start showing social behavior. So for dolphins, they might echolocate or whistle at it or squawk at it. I'm going to hold myself back from doing imitations, but they...
FLATOW: Feel free.
REISS: Oh, I will...
FLATOW: It's radio.
REISS: ...soon, soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
REISS: But they'll do - and they'll show typical social behaviors. And for scientists who study them, we have to know what those social behaviors look like. So the second stage is what we call contingency testing. Now, for any of you out there listening to the station who know the old - the Harpo Marx, Lucille Ball or Groucho skit in front of the mirror. This is what...
FLATOW: The mirror image of each other.
REISS: This is what you see. I mean, it's pretty much highly repetitive behaviors, really unusual behaviors in front of the mirror. Now, it may look odd and funny to us, but in reality, this is where the light bulb goes on. This is where the animal figures out that something that it's doing, that the behaviors it's doing are related to the behaviors they're seeing in the mirror. And they start realizing there's this one-to-one correspondence. And that's a really important stage.
So you - when you see this stage, you generally will see animals go on to use the mirror to look at themselves, and that's that third stage we call self-directed behavior. And this is so interesting because not only have my colleagues and I studied dolphins and shown dolphins can show mirror self-recognition, but we've done this with elephants. We did this with elephants at the Bronx Zoo.
FLATOW: OK.
REISS: France Duvall(ph), who I know has been here, and his graduate student Josh Plotnick(ph) and I collaborated, so we showed this in Asian elephants as well. What's amazing is that the elephants, dolphins, chimps and humans show the same kinds of behaviors often at the mirror.
FLATOW: Wow.
REISS: Wow. Yeah.
FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. I'm Ira Flatow, and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. They don't start straitening their hair out, do they?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
REISS: No. But I'll tell you something...
FLATOW: So (unintelligible). Go ahead.
REISS: Oh, we're on?
FLATOW: Yeah, yeah.
REISS: Sorry. So what they do is they'll look inside their mouths, and they'll open their mouths really wide. Dolphins will often wiggle their tongues. And it's clear they're opening and holding and looking inside their mouths. They all put their eyes up against the mirror and look at their eyes very closely. So they may look at one eye and then turn and look at the other eye. They look at their genitals often. We didn't see this in elephants, but we certainly see this in humans, chimps and dolphins.
And again, they watch themselves doing different things in front of the mirror. When we look at children and they're playing in front of the mirror, you watch yourself doing that fancy new dance step, dolphins do all sorts of things like blowing varieties of bubbles, doing different kinds of play at the mirror.
FLATOW: Wow. Talking with Diana Reiss, author of the new book "The Dolphin in the Mirror." You know, people are always saying, well, this is not really intelligent animals like we are. They're just trained to do things. You don't agree with that.
REISS: Not at all. In fact, you know, you can train pigeons to do all sorts of complex things. Rats can be trained to do all sorts of complex things, and even insects and goldfish. It's not - it's what they do in their own behavior. These are highly complex mammals with complex social lives, complex cognitive lives. And we have - we know enough now to know that they are highly intelligent. And it's not just what you're seeing in the training. That's the minimal stuff.
FLATOW: Why do they need such big brains like that?
REISS: That's a really interesting question. And one of the ideas is that their brains are getting bigger and - as they're dealing with more complexity. I mean, imagine being a mammal out in the ocean without a cell phone, for example. They have these highly complex social networks. They have to remember who's there, who they interacted with, who they collaborated with in the past. And also, you know, they coordinate, collaborate with each other, and they have to - again, they have to have memory for what worked, who they interacted with. And then, there are challenges in the environment, you know? And they have to survive.
FLATOW: They come from the same family as whales, right?
REISS: Right.
FLATOW: Why aren't whales as smart?
REISS: Well, we don't know that whales aren't as smart. We just haven't had the opportunity to study them. In general, we have – we've had dolphins in aquaria for many, many years, and that's afforded us the opportunity to understand the minds of these amazing animals. With whales, there really haven't been many cognitive studies done with killer whales, with orcas. I don't know why that is. But most other whales, you - it's very hard to do cognitive work in the wild.
FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. You know, you see them in the wild acting as teams.
REISS: Right.
FLATOW: It's really amazing.
REISS: It is. And it's, you know, this idea of cooperation care-giving, you see that - you see it in whales. You see it in dolphins. And it makes you think, you know, do they really know what they're doing when they save a human? It's a whole other area.
FLATOW: Do they actually save humans? Yeah?
REISS: Oh, there has been - I talk about this in the book. I talk about the myths of dolphins saving humans, and then, there are historical accounts, records, historical records of dolphins saving humans and statues being built, you know, in honoring dolphins. And the question is, well, did they know what they were doing? Are these just myths? Are they stories? But we know now. We have new accounts, contemporary accounts of dolphins doing the same.
FLATOW: You were into Greek mythology as a kid.
REISS: Yeah.
FLATOW: Is that what got you thinking about dolphins?
REISS: Not at all.
FLATOW: No?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
REISS: No. That would be...
FLATOW: There was a movie about dolphin - a Greek guy - I can't remember what it is at the moment but...
REISS: Yeah.
FLATOW: ...a boy and his dolphin or something.
REISS: Right. No. I was always interested in Greek mythology, but I was never interested in dolphins. I really didn't - I wasn't a "Flipper" fan. I like "Lassie" better than I liked "Flipper." It wasn't until I got older. My background was actually in theater. So I was a stage designer. And I always had a science background and an interest in science, and I left the theater to go into science to study animal communication. And it was one day when I was reading a story in The New York Times about whaling that I - it struck me: we hardly know anything about these magnificent animals. We need to learn more, so.
FLATOW: All right. We're going to learn a little bit more. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Talking with Diana Reiss. She's the author of the new book "The Dolphin in the Mirror." She runs a dolphin research program at the National Aquarium. And we'll take your calls. 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I. We'll be right back after this break.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Dr. Diana Reiss, author of the new book "The Dolphin in the Mirror." She's professor in the psychology department at Hunter College here in New York. Let's see if we can get a phone call in before we have to go. Sam in Des Moines. Hi, Sam.
SAM: Hey, Ira. Thanks for taking my call. Your prefaced this show by asking whether or not dolphins have language, and I'm actually an English professor. And one of the essays that I begin my composition semester with is by Susanne Langer, a philosopher who says that what makes us human, separates us from all other animals, is the fact that we have symbolic language, whereas all other animals understand signs. They have significant language. They can react to signs, but we're the only animal that has a concept - that can see that it has a concept of a past and the future because we have language. We have symbolic thought.
And I was just wondering if, Dr. Reiss, if that's something that your research is looking at in terms of whether it's chimps or dolphins or other language or other animals that they have a sense of history, a sense of symbolism.
FLATOW: All right. Thanks for the call.
REISS: They have memory in the sense of, you know, they have memory. I don't know - we don't know very much about the sense of history other than that. But in terms of symbolic behaviors, it's something I'm very involved in, and I've been very interested in decoding dolphins own forms of communication. We haven't found the Rosetta Stone to crack that code yet, although they do use complex sounds and behaviors in communication. Years ago, I did a study giving dolphins an underwater keyboard to ask the question, how would they use this - a symbolic board?
They had visual forms on the keyboard. If they had a key, they would hear a particular whistle that was different from their own and get an object. So it was a simple touch key, hear whistle, get object. What we found was the dolphins showed us that they - on their own, they learned associations between the symbols, the sounds, the objects. And they have been symbolic, and they started using it amongst themselves. But we couldn't confirm that. So we don't really know, and that's exactly what I'm looking at now. We're doing a more a high-tech key - touch screen. We're trying to get funding for that right now.
FLATOW: All right. Fascinating book, it's called "The Dolphin in the Mirror" by Dr. Diana Reiss, professor in psychology at the department of Hunter College. Thank you for taking time to be with us today.
REISS: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks.
FLATOW: Good luck to you.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
NPR - Diana Reiss: "Dolphin in the Mirror"
This segment is scheduled for the 11 am hour on today's Diane Rehm Show (like, NOW, on the east coast) - sounds good. The intelligence of dolphins has always been interesting to scientists, especially since Dolphins can learn a version of sign language to communicate with us, but we have understood very little of their language.
LISTEN
LISTEN
Diana Reiss: "Dolphin in the Mirror"
Thursday, September 15, 2011 - 11:06 a.m.
In this photo provided by Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, pacific white-sided dolphin Tique swims with her calf that she gave birth to Friday, June 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Shedd Aquarium, Brenda Hernandez)
Dolphins have fascinated humans for centuries. Some ancient cultures even worshipped dolphins and condemned anyone who harmed them. Despite that historic connection, dolphins around the globe are often mistreated and even slaughtered. It’s long been known that dolphins possess keen intelligence and self awareness – a trait once thought to be uniquely human. One pioneer of dolphin research has joined a crusade to save them from being butchered by Japanese fisherman. The National Aquarium’s director of dolphin research talks with Diane about understanding and protecting dolphins.
Guests
Diana Reiss - Director of the Dolphin Research Program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Professor in the Psychology Department at Hunter College and in the Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience Program of the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Related Links
Link to Dr. Weiss' dolphin research on National Aquarium website
Link to Dr. Reiss' page at Hunter College
Related Items
The Dolphin in the Mirror: Exploring Dolphin Minds and Saving Dolphin Lives
Sunday, March 21, 2010
All in the Mind - Diving into dolphin heads: science, rights and ethics
Excellent episode. More here, including a video.
Diving into dolphin heads: science, rights and ethics
Diving into the dolphin brain
View the image galleryThe Cove took out this year's Oscar for best documentary for its confronting coverage of the annual dolphin culls in Taiji, Japan. Scientists argue dolphins have complex, large brains - second only to human brains relative to body weight. Join Natasha Mitchell with leading cetacean scientists and an ethicist for a tour of a waterborne 'alien intelligence'. What are the consequences for captivity, and a controversial call for 'personhood' status?
Guests
Associate Professor Jacopo Annese
Founder and director
The Brain Observatory
University of San Diego
California
USA
http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/Professor Thomas I. White
Conrad N. Hilton Chair of Business Ethics
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles
USA
http://cba.lmu.edu/facultyresearch/facultylist/white.htmProfessor Diana Reiss
Professor of Psychology and Biopsychology, and Behavioural Neuroscience
Hunter College
City University of New York
USA
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/02_Faculty/FacultyPages/Faculty_Reiss.htmlDr Lori Marino
Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioural Biology
Faculty affiliate with the Centre for Ethics
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
http://www.nbb.emory.edu/faculty/personal/marino.htmlFurther Information
All in the Mind blog with presenter Natasha Mitchell
Join Natasha Mitchell in the All in the Mind blog. You can add comments there, or directly here on the webpage too (It's easy! Just look for Add Your Comment).2010 AAAS Conference - Intelligence of Dolphins: Ethical and Policy Implications session
February, 2010.The Brain Observatory, University of California San Diego
Dolphins: the Philosophical Questions
PDF of a chapter from Thomas I. White's book, In Defense of Dolphins.The Cove
Oscar Winning documentary on the dolphin drives in JapanReview of The Cove - Oscar Winning documentary
The Movie Show, ABC Radio National
Review by Ruth Hessey, 2009In Defense of Dolphins
Accompanies the book of the same name by Thomas I WhitePublications
Title: Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence
Author: Diana Reiss and Lori Marino
Publisher: The National Academy of Sciences, 2001
URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5937.abstractTitle: In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier
Author: Thomas I. White
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing 2007
ISBN: 9781405157780Title: Japan's dolphin drive hunts from a scientific and animal welfare perspective
Author: Diana Reiss
URL: http://www.whales-online.org/doc_bin/reiss_marino_drivehunts_2007.doc
Originally published by The Ocean Project at http://www.theoceanproject.org/actfordolphins/scivi.htmlTitle: Spontaneous Vocal Mimicry and Production by Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): Evidence for Vocal Learning
Author: Reiss D, McCowan B
Publisher: Journal of Comparative Psychology, 1993 Sep;107(3):301-12
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8375147Title: Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition
Author: Lori Marino, Richard C. Connor, R. Ewan Fordyce, Louis M. Herman, Patrick R. Hof, Louis Lefebvre, David Lusseau, Brenda McCowan, Esther A. Nimchinsky, Adam A. Pack, Luke Rendell, Joy S. Reidenberg, Diana Reiss, Mark D. Uhen, Estel Van der Gucht, Hal Whitehead
Publisher: PLoS Biol 5(5): e139, 2007
URL: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139Title: Cortical Complexity in Cetacean Brains
Author: Patrick R. Hof, Rebecca Chanis, Lori Marino
Publisher: The Anatonomical Record, Volume 287A Issue 1, Pages 1142 - 1152, 2006
URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112098743/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0Title: Neuroanatomy of the Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) from Magnetic Resonance Images
Author: Marino Lori, Sherwood Chet C, Delman Bradley N, Tang Cheuk Y, Taidich Thomas P, Hof Patrick R
Publisher: The Anatomical Record, 2004, vol. 281A, no2, pp. 1256-1263
URL: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16345569Title: Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates
Author: Marino Lori
Publisher: Brain behavior and evolution 2002, vol. 59, no1-2, pp. 21-32
URL: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13773972Title: Dolphin-Assisted Therapy: More Flawed Data and More Flawed Conclusions
Author: Lori Marino, and Scott O Lilienfeld
Publisher: Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, Volume 20, Number 3, September 2007 , pp. 239-249(11)
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/anthroz/2007/00000020/00000003/art00003Title: Origin and Evolution of Large Brains in Toothed Whales
Author: L Marino, D.W McShea, M.D Uhen
Publisher: 2004, vol. 281A, no2, pp. 1247-1255
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15497142Title: Whistles with Dolphins
Author: Frederik Joelving
Publisher: Scientific American January 26, 2009
URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=whistles-with-dolphinsPresenter
Natasha Mitchell
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