Do Elephants Make Choices By Exclusion?

Not surprisingly, elephants are known for being more emotional and empathetic animals than the rest. According the three articles, “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk in a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” elephants understand when they need each other’s assistance. All two authors describe the studies of elephant behavior differently, but with a similar purpose.

To begin with, the first article, “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk.” Written by Virginia Morell, talks about what experiment they are using and how they

Textual Evidence: “While the behavior of elephants of elephants provides clear evidence of high intelligence, there has been little definitive experimental evidence. However, one capacity that has been of interest

When you think of an intelligent and social animal, what do you think of? A chimp, a dolphin, or a dog? Actually, an elephant can be included as well. Elephants have been proven to show cognitive abilities through a new experiment and study where they tested elephants to see if they would work together to gain food. Three pieces of information that talk about this incredible new study are the article “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Hand” by Virginia Morell, the video ”Elephants Shows Cooperation” presented by Discovery News. Although these selections talk about the same topic, they are different in many ways. The video is different from the two texts because of the differences in the information

This experiment in my opinion was useful to psychology. But I don’t agree with the methods that were applied. The researchers taught some behaviours to the monkeys that unless humans never show them how to do they will never do it by themselves, like

(1963) bobo doll studies has been discussed to demonstrate that experiments that lack ecological validity still have influential results. Nevertheless, even though the experiment was controlled, and results were valid it is absent of telling whether the children would go on to demonstrate the behaviour in the real world. Subsequently, Skinners (1979) experiments were deliberated to show that ecological validity was deficient, however, the outcome of observing animals learning behaviour in their natural habitat would not have been controlled enough to discover if animals can learn behaviour. Finally, Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiments were considered to show that ecological validity can still be maintained under control conditions but this can affect how participants answer the question. Nevertheless, this is so that ethical issues are not

The official title of the world’s largest land dwelling animal belongs to the elephant, more specifically, the African elephant. Elephants are some of the most deadly animals, which increases the danger of human and elephant interactions. Increased human and elephant interactions lead to increased deaths of both humans and elephants. Surprisingly, these animals are socially apt. The trunk is used for more than just eating and drinking; it is used for socializing. They are complex animals who live in large familial herds. Females stay with their family throughout their entire lives while males only stay for approximately fifteen years (Elephant Protection 1). Elephants possess a great memory and only forget what they learn occasionally and

Have you ever wondered how intelligent elephants are? I bet you guessed not very intelligent however, you would be wrong. Elephants are actually very intelligent. This is explained in the video Elephants Show Cooperation, the article “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, and a passage from the study “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk in a Cooperative Task”. These sources all explain an experiment involving Asian Elephants and teamwork activities. Although the video, article, and passage from the study all explain the same topic and experiment, the delivery of information is all very different which influence the reader’s understanding of the

Contrary to marketing claims touting the effectiveness of sonic and ultrasonic devices, studies demonstrated that they had little if any effect (Belant et al., 1998, January). Due to the lack of demonstrable effectiveness of sonic and ultrasonic devices, they were not used in this project. Bio-acoustic devices had recently been employed to some effect. One study using bio acoustics showed great promise (Hildreth et al., 2013). It used eight distress calls of deer (recorded during capture and release events) then played back when a deer crossed into the feeding area. Although the device was only tested for two week, the “deer-activated bioacoustics frightening device (DABAFD) … was nearly 100% effective at reducing the number of times deer entered protected sites and 100% effective at reducing feed consumption.” (Hildreth et al., 2013, p. 110). The limited duration of the study notwithstanding, a bio acoustic type device was intended to be incorporated into the

The authors in “ Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk In a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” all propose different purposes on one main general idea; elephants are more complex in ‘human behaviour’ than previously believed . Along with purpose, the authors aim at different viewpoints that all relatively agree with the same general acquisition, again, ‘ human behavior’.

” Just a decade ago, animal rights activists advocated the “liberation” of apes in zoos, some unaware that a revolution in great ape exhibitry was under way worldwide. Today, 40 AZA zoos are currently planning or implementing significant improvements in their elephant exhibits (J. Maddy, personal communication, June 11, 2006). Many primate experts endorse exhibits designed to provide appropriate social stimulation and challenge the animal’s intellect. What is good for apes may be equally good for elephants”, (Maple 65).

We started this experiment by conducting magazine training with Sniffy. The Magazine training technique was used in order for Sniffy to make the association between the sound of the food hopper with food. Every time Sniffy approached the food hopper a food pallet would be delivered through the pressing of the space bar. We waited until the Sound-Food bar association on the Operant Associations mind window reached 3/4’s of the way. This meant that the association between sound and food was strong enough to begin helping shape Sniffy’s behavior. This file was saved to be used later in the training of Sniffy to press the bar himself.

Elephants are largely affected by what they see and conceive, which makes Maggie Nelson’s image flow a theory to

Skinner conducted a series of research experiments with rats and pigeons under controlled laboratory conditions using a specially designed cage. By doing so he sought to demonstrate that behaviour can be created and reinforced by external factors. The puzzle box he created for his experiments has become so widely used that it is now known as the “Skinner box”. Animals would be placed in a cage which had a bar lever mechanism used to dispense food; Skinner would measure the frequency of the bar pressing and introduce different variables into the experiments. This led to his discovery of 'partial reinforcement' and its correlation to the slower extinction of shaped behaviour. When food pellets would only be dispensed once in a while (as opposed to every pressing) Skinner noticed that it took longer for the learnt behaviour to become extinct. The powerful phenomenon of partial reinforcement can be noticed in gambling establishments; a player on a slot machine is more likely to keep up their behaviour of playing if the rewards are unpredictable and occasional. The player becomes more persistent in their gambling in the hope that the next coin will be the winner (Hunt, 1993).

“I no longer feel inclined to make comments on my own work, which I feel should speak for itself.” - Fleur Adcock