Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 July 18

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July 18

Voices in my head

This could be connected to psychology, but I'm not even sure about that. When reading certain words, I have to think of certain voices. Some examples:

Yahoo! --> Not the Yahoo commercial in my case, but the Shofixti "Glory Device" sound. Call me silly.

YEAH! --> CSI: Miami soundtrack (duh!).

Asta la vista --> Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I am not an atomic playboy --> Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy.

Is there a name for that phenomenon? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 10:45, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Wow, the Shofixti link works! I'm impressed.

The authors of "Silent Reading of Direct versus Indirect Speech Activates Voice-selective Areas in the Auditory Cortex" call it "perceptual simulations (or spontaneous imagery)", though the quote continues "of the reported speaker's voice". In your examples there are no reported speakers, only implied ones. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:06, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

So it would only apply if it is the speaker I associate with the words? Time to play more Star Control then. Ya-HOO! - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:51, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd have to call it a type of intelligence - a high aptitude for retention and recall, from a wide variety of media. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I seem to be quite good at it. Could be related to the "3 types of learners": one prefers learning by listening, the other by reading, and the third type by reading. Only now did I notice how well Ya-HOO! and ¡Ouch! go together: "Ouch" is the usual result of a successful Glory run. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Animal Thinking

Inspired by the question above, and bizarrely I was thinking about this yesterday after reading Animals In Translation for the umpteenth time, I was wondering about how animals think. I am very sure this question cannot be answered, but with humans, we think in words. Of course, we have images, too. Has there been any research on animals for this? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 13:07, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I can't give you a citation, but the consensus of what I've read here and there by animal behavior theorists is that animals appear to think in frames of reference they can sense: "mental pictures", smells, etc. I think it's Jackson Galaxy who has said on a number of occasions that when you play with a cat, be it with string or toy mice or whatever, they are "imagining" catching prey. That's why they may run over to the food bowl after they're done playing, to kind of have closure of this imagining. Similarly, if you're caressing your cat, it will purr contentedly and get into a posture that emulates nursing when they're kittens, as that's what they're imagining or reliving at that point. Which is why they will knead and then lick their paws, imagining they are getting those last drop of mother's milk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

And it's worth mentioning that humans often do this too. Athletes and others talk about "visualizing". A favorite example of mine is a hobbled Kirk Gibson at bat in Game One of the 1988 World Series. His knees were in such bad shape he could barely walk. At certain points in the at-bat, he stepped out of the batter's box and swung the bat a few times. He said later he was visualizing where the ball might be and how he would swing at it. After he knocked it into the right field seats for the game winning home run, radiocaster Jack Buck famously said, "I don't believe what I just saw!" Gibson believed it. It turned out just the way he had visualized it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:25, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

In Wembley and the Great Race, Red (an athletic Fraggle) is trying to explain to Wembley (a wishy-washy wimp) how the first step to outracing Gobo (the alpha Fraggle) is imagining it. At first, he dismisses the idea of even imagining it as preposterous. But with some encouragement, he tries visualizing it hard. And fails. But he wins the race anyhow, shocking himself.

My point is individual animals likely think differently from other of their species, due to experience and personality traits. I have roosters, some successful at chicken loving, some not. It seems the winning ones just kept getting better, while the two wimps got far worse with time. If you're used to failing, that's likely what you'll visualize, essentially "cockblocking yourself" (not necessarily sexually). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:42, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

It's probably impossible to know for sure what animals are thinking - but sometimes we can infer things. A great example comes from dogs - they have an instinct to show submission to a pack leader by licking their throats right below the chin. My dogs have frequently done that..."I recognize that you're the boss" is the clear message here. But dogs often lick the underside of your wrists in the same way...what's going on there? The suggestion is that dogs think of our hands as extra mouths...seems bizarre...we're giant three-headed monsters as far as they are concerned!? But if you're a dog, your mouth is what you use to manipulate the world - and human hands do that...so perhaps it follows that if hands are mouths, then wrists seem like throats - and they lick them to show submission. Do we know this for sure - well no, of course not - but if we can find more evidence for it - perhaps it's a reasonable assumption. So we note that stroking a dog calms it down...why would that be? Well, we know that a mother dog licks it's puppies and that calms them...so stroking has the same effect as licking - and this is additional circumstantial evidence that our dogs imagine that our hands are like mouths. Add that a dominance gesture in wolves is to pin a rival on it's back and loosely place jaws across it's throat..."I could easily crush your windpipe and kill you right now - but I'm not going to". The "underdog" may briefly struggle to get out from this - but if it can't, it ultimately submits by going limp. My dog does the exact same thing if I put my hand across his throat while he's on his back and pretend to strangle him...so hands have jaws evidently.

So with careful observation, we can perhaps piece together some small insights into how animals think - but we're unlikely to ever be 100% right.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Another interesting aspect of animal thought relates to "theory of mind", the ability most people have to make a good guess at what others are currently thinking, or will think, in a given situation. Most animals seem to lack that ability. There are possible exceptions, though. One possible example is tigers, who always attack from behind. People who live where tigers are a problem will even wear masks on the backs of their heads to convince tigers that they are looking at the front side of the person (a good example of "theory of mind" at work in humans). Presumably the reason for attacking from the back is that if a person sees the tiger pouncing, they might get a spear or bow and arrow or knife deployed in time to wound or kill the tiger (and note that a wound that prevents them from hunting will likely cause them to starve to death, too).

Now, this could mean the tiger is thinking about what the person thinks, or it could simply be a trait that evolved, when only tigers who liked to attack from behind survived to pass on this gene, without them knowing why they attack from behind. Note that this attacking from behind behavior may also be important when attacking other animals which can defend themselves, given sufficient warning. Also, tigers, like all cats, are built for sprinting, not marathon runs, so many prey species could outrun them, given enough warning of an attack.

Some primates also engage in theft, or mating which wouldn't be sanctioned by the leader, only when they are out of sight. This could also mean they know what others are thinking. StuRat (talk) 15:21, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

• Note that humans don't always think in words, as your question seems to imply. If you recall the smell of e.g. your grandparent's house, your brain is not using words to conjure up that olfactory memory.

--But you asked for research, so here's a well-reviewed recent scholarly book on the topic: "Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence" [1]. For a much older perspective, you might like this one [2]. Here is an open access article I was able to find [3]. Hope these help, SemanticMantis (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

• Whatever you can do or "think" without using or never having used a word a higher mammal can to. They can even say no, (growl) in many cases. Things that require the sentences of three year olds (my neice just told me she had a gree light saber. I asked her was it new, or was it her brother's? She named her brother we have no evidence animals can "think". Given dogs and two yea olds know they are doing bad, it seems non-linguistic thinking can be pretty sophisticated. μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

• That might be taking it a bit far. They may act as if they know they did wrong, but it may well be that they do so because such actions help to minimize their punishment, without having a clue what you are thinking, or even that you are thinking. StuRat (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

And you've never done that yourself? With a partner, parent, boss or someone? It beats the more honest "What the hell's your problem, anyway?" response seven times out of ten, at least in civilization. Your dog hangs its head in sorry confusion, but try scolding a wolf. Or any other stranger. Conflict avoidance only works when there's a reason to avoid a conflict. Love, foresight, self-consciousness or whatever else mammals have in common. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Stu you seem to be requiring an explicit theory of mind and morality in words, all I am saying is non-dominant males will sneak sex when they know they are not being seen, dogs will sleep on the couch, then sneak down when they hear the owner coming, two-year-olds will sneak cookies when they think they can get away with it--this is all behavior at a similar level of intelligence possible without wrkds. Once you want to do, what is the cost of two 40 dollar shirts with a 6% sales tax going to leave me if I start with $125.00 you ned higher concepts in the form of words no available to animal. μηδείς (talk) 17:43, 19 July 2014 (UTC)