owleye

sweet as a nut...

"i am not certain about this- do you think that the actions of animals are not based on rules?"

Assuming that concepts (rules) are used to discriminate objects and that birds and dogs can discriminate objects (sharing many of the same objects we can discriminate, allowing that birds and dogs may be able to discriminate somethings better than we can), then birds and dogs use concepts in perception. Making errors or being surprised, however, seems to require more than mere discrimination. I'd been thinking of starting a thread which asks the question: What is it to be surprised? Do you think I would get any takers?

owleye

Laurentius

To be surprised may be defined as: "to feel wonder, astonishment, or amazement, as at something unanticipated."
Cats, with which I'm more familiar, are able of being surprised - I can't forget the expression of stupor I could notice in my tomcat posture whenever something relevant in his universe went through a sudden and radical change (and I was there to record it). Surprise in animals becomes observable when a pattern they have become used to shows an important modification of one element. If more elements are involved, animals may no longer recognise the pattern and they'll just experience confusion, or even panic.

owleye

Laurentius...

"To be surprised may be defined as: "to feel wonder, astonishment, or amazement, as at something unanticipated."

Unfortunately, the addition of "wonder", "astonishment" and "amazement" do not help much, especially if I have to require it to be a feeling. However, I think "unexpected" or "unanticipated" is helpful. What is needed now, is the determination of sense of expectation that is required for surprises. Can it be said that a bird which pecks at a particular tray expects to receive its reward such that when it fails to receive it it is surprised? I don't think this sense of expectation quite captures what is needed. It seems to me to be merely a statistical phenomenon. If I peck a tray, I will be rewarded because I have previously been rewarded by pecking on the tray. If at some point I don't get rewarded, this would not be sufficient to count as a surprise since I have inserted no necessary relationship between pecking and rewards into the behavior. The "rule" which I'd previously followed is no longer applicable and I will go about trying to find another rule.

To be a surprise, it seems to me, requires that I have what amounts to a theory of the world in which my pecking plays a signficant role in bringing about its reward. If pecking failed to bring about the reward, I should be surprised because up to that moment I believed I'd understood something about the world and in fact I was wrong. The play we'd been watching had a surprise ending because the screen writer put something into it that not only varied from what we had become accustomed to but varied from how we expect plays to proceed.

"Cats, with which I'm more familiar, are able of being surprised - I can't forget the expression of stupor I could notice in my tomcat posture whenever something relevant in his universe went through a sudden and radical change (and I was there to record it). Surprise in animals becomes observable when a pattern they have become used to shows an important modification of one element. If more elements are involved, animals may no longer recognise the pattern and they'll just experience confusion, or even panic."

Maybe you're right, but I have my doubts. I can understand that a cat may be startled and confused if their universe is disturbed in some way, but I'm not entirely convinced this means it was surprised. There are different layers of expectations and each has its own distinctive qualities that come into play when expectations are not met. It is presumably important to teach children that the unexpected is an important part of our lives. At a young age we learn that there is a close relationship between being afraid of something and realizing that what one is afraid of is something that was constructed by someone who was "just kidding." Aestheticians of my acquaintance consider these educational experiences aesthetic. I believe being surprised requires a cognitive advance over learning from conditioned responses and I think more is gained by having it this way than by allowing surprises to be mushed into the set of stupefying responses we and many animals share.

owleye