Talk:Elephant cognition

How many nuerons does an elephant's brain contain? --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• The text that this material was copied from also contained formatting errors; 1011 should be 10¹¹, for example. I have changed the text accordingly. Jcandy 07:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there any evidence for the elephant's apparently prodigious memory, as this article claims, other than the old wives' tale? The linked article doesn't seem to provide it, and the claim seems spurious, if not downright incorrect.

"the best memory in the entire animal kingdom (far better than human memory capacity)"? What does "the best" memory mean? Memory is a very complex system. Saying elephants have "far better" memory capacity than humans is both ill-supported and, more importantly, completely meaningless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.34.13.165 (talk) 04:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

General Comment: The quality of the prose on this page, from top to bottom, could be improved. There are numerous grammatical errors, for example, and the style is awkward. I think the content is a bit heavy on anecdotal accounts and thin on traditional "objective" scientific data. Jcandy 07:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

References

Please use the hyperlinked inline citations described in Wikipedia:Footnotes#How_to_use, rather than creating superscript numbers with html coding. The ref coding allows for dynamic lists, which will renumber themselves upon the addition or removal of a reference, and also allow for hyperlinks from number to actual note. Illustrating the first point, several of the superscripted numbers had no corresponding footnote, and the number was absolutely wacky. Natalie 01:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I'm sorry...the numbering was all messed up...I'm new to wiki I read the articles but got so confused! I think it's upto scratch now?The duskydolphin 02:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoever is adding all the extra references...thanks heaps! I am getting really confused with the tabs and references! Looks much better now. The duskydolphin 01:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• Attention duskydolphin: please do not save new pages so frequently! During an edit session, you may simply use the "preview" facility to view minor changes. When you are finished with a logical sequence of edits (section edits, for example), and have carefully proofed your changes, then you can save your changes, along with a coherent edit summary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcandy (talk • contribs) 20:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Self awareness

Self awareness is NOT proven in elephants. First of all, there is considerable debate within the scientific and philosophical communities regarding the applicability of the mirror test to self-awareness. A better phrasing would say elephant self recognition was proven. My cite is Joseph LeDoux's "Synaptic Self."--74.185.64.225 (talk) 17:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Painting

Just a link drop, for future reference and possible inclusion. (I have too many tabs open...) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• Salon People | Why do elephants paint?
• NOVICA - Elephant Art
• YouTube - Elephant Paints Self Portrait (!?!), and an older one YouTube - Elephant Art

— One of the YouTube videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXhhdkOc9Bo) is from the side the trainer is on, and shows the trainer holding the elephant's tusk and perhaps guiding the painting. That the elephant paints at all is nice, but I don't think we can conclude from these videos that this is a breakthrough display of elephant cognition. In the videos where no trainer is nearby, the painting is more "abstract". Jim Winters (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought the elephant's drawing of an elephant looked fairly convincing, will see if I detect the trainer guiding it.

An interesting thing is that in the wild, elephants have been observed making scratched in the dirt. Perhaps this behavior is a form of either painting or some other communication, such as directions for travel.--Jrm2007 (talk) 10:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Elephant Writing

Does anyone have any links or references to any studies or attempts to try to teach elephants to write symbols in either an alphabetic or a logographic script? 4.242.174.54 (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I, too have heard of this and remember a documentary about elephants being given shapes and matching them and doing maths...if anyone has links, add them! —Preceding unsigned comment added by The duskydolphin (talk • contribs) 10:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Altruism Example

An African elephant freed a rhino calf that was stuck in the mud -- something the calf's mother was apparently unaware of. Not certain where I encountered this anecdote, don't think the event was filmed.--Jrm2007 (talk) 10:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a link which discusses the rhino incident: http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2004/10-12/54-57_animals.shtml--Jrm2007 (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Play Example

A video exists of a baby elephant that had been brought to a schoolyard observing kids using a swing. The elephant chased the kids away with its trunk and attempted to use the swing as it had seen the kids doing.--Jrm2007 (talk) 10:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

An Experiment -- has it been done?

I believe that some apes can be shown a model of a room in which something representing a treat has been placed in a hidden location and use this information to then find the treat in the actual room. Not all individuals of the same species can do this.

I wonder if this has been tried with elephants.--Jrm2007 (talk) 08:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)