Simple-minded nautilus reveals flash of memory

Read more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14033

Experiments involving food and flashing lights revealed that nautiluses have some memory skills after all.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• nautilus
• food
• lights
• flashing
• memory
• learning
• cephalopod
• new
• scientist
• newscientist

[Avalikia]

Primitive creatures have very simple brains that are easier to study than complex brains like ours. Since we are so lacking in our ability to study a complex brain at the present time, it's only logical that we'd first try to understand a simple brain like the one possessed by the nautilus. Once we understand their brains understanding ours will be that much easier. Is that reason enough?

[Jsd8675]

We are so arrogant and conceited as human beings to think we are so unique with any type of memory or cognition.

Give nature some credit.

[gizmo664100]

can they swim forward

[danieldeibler]

Looks like someone doesn't know the difference between memory and operant conditioning. You know, if you touch a pill bug (roly poly) every time it unrolls, it'll eventually just stay closed for a while. That doesn't mean it remembers being touched. It just associated unrolling with getting touched, and every time it unrolled and got immediately touched again reinforced that association.

[CorrelatedComments]

It is a laughable notion that the nautilus reacted to the light after being fed "delicious pulverized fish heads".

[maddcatone]

so true.

[KOGR11]

@maddcatone well put thats why I sometimes say psychology is a pseudo science, almost every two decades someone from outside of that field comes along and proves their proceedings to beworng and they have to restructure everything they have formulated up to that point

[maddcatone]

Correct. If it's not a study of a large population, as far as psychology goes it shouldn't be taken seriously as a scientific study. A physics experiment can be established on a small pop. such as 3 or so, because they are guided by LAWS, psychology is more wide field of data. The trends aren't so mathematically clean. You need a wide field of data to get around the outliers/exceptions to each rule.

[maddcatone]

breaking a language barrier is one thing, but to break an interspecial communication barrier is a lot harder. Humans have manorisms that other humans understand because of our similar actions. we know when one's eyes open real wide it means they're surprised or aware because we do it ourselves. Animals have entirely different manorisms all together. We have very little common ground to judge from. A Dog's way of saying get away or I'll attack isn't understood by a human. We call it a growl.

[maddcatone]

haha so funny yet so crude... haha

[maddcatone]

haha... not a whole lot lol. That's why history repeats itself.

[DeadScarab]

nice,they thave memory....but what do they use it for? xD

nice question,what do we use it for? xD