Now I am not actually referring to the planks who 'follow' celebrity Tweeters or Facebook posters in order to be one of their 800,000 'friends'.
In fact the story is that the University of Cambridge conducted experiments on eight sheep using photographs of 'celebrities', mixed in with random faces to test their cognitive abilities.
The initial aim was to see if the sheep could be taught to recognise the celebrities faces full on from the random faces, and then extrapolate from that, and recognise the same faces from side views.
After food reward had reinforced the initial behaviour when a celebrity face was picked, the sheep could identify the full on faces correctly eight out of ten times, and seven times out of ten from a side view. The aim was to determine if sheep's brains could be used as alternative models for certain human brain disorders, as they match monkeys brains in some other regards.
This looks terribly like a candidate for the Ig Nobel awards, because sheep have been recognising farmers and their families for millennia, while being suspicious of strangers. Which suggests that they could identify human faces and bodies. I might add that seagulls and crows can do the same thing. I have a seagull who regularly checks me out when in the back garden and has developed some sneaky food tactics. The gull doesn't do it when other people go into my garden.
Mind you, the University of Cambridge team face some stiff Ig Nobel opposition this year, such as the researchers at the University of Sussex who identified that horses have 17 different facial expressions while communicating with other horses, and presumably the girls who look after them.
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| Clever Sheep Soon Worked Out Cattle Grids ..... |
In fact the story is that the University of Cambridge conducted experiments on eight sheep using photographs of 'celebrities', mixed in with random faces to test their cognitive abilities.
The initial aim was to see if the sheep could be taught to recognise the celebrities faces full on from the random faces, and then extrapolate from that, and recognise the same faces from side views.
After food reward had reinforced the initial behaviour when a celebrity face was picked, the sheep could identify the full on faces correctly eight out of ten times, and seven times out of ten from a side view. The aim was to determine if sheep's brains could be used as alternative models for certain human brain disorders, as they match monkeys brains in some other regards.
This looks terribly like a candidate for the Ig Nobel awards, because sheep have been recognising farmers and their families for millennia, while being suspicious of strangers. Which suggests that they could identify human faces and bodies. I might add that seagulls and crows can do the same thing. I have a seagull who regularly checks me out when in the back garden and has developed some sneaky food tactics. The gull doesn't do it when other people go into my garden.
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| Horse Faces Mean Something |
Mind you, the University of Cambridge team face some stiff Ig Nobel opposition this year, such as the researchers at the University of Sussex who identified that horses have 17 different facial expressions while communicating with other horses, and presumably the girls who look after them.
I'd heard about sheep's cattle-grid get-around. My question is why do they want to cross it? Is the grass always greener? That could be the next study along with whether sheep protest too much? and what do they count to get to sleep?
ReplyDeleteIf your a sheep then you don't need a reason to do anything.
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