Cephalopod Intelligence Research Paper

VampireSquid

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Hi I am a Highschool senior and I love Cephalopods. I have a research paper due in a couple weeks on Cephalopod intelligence and I still need some research. Book suggestions or any thoughts would be a great help
 
Hanlon & Messenger Cephalopod Behavior is hands-down the best single source. Anything by J.Z. Young is good also, but will be heavier on the brain anatomy than behavior. If you have a local university library, they are likely to have those. Wells Octopus might be helpful as well, and if you can find a copy of Moynihan Communication and Noncommunication by Cephalopods that's good as well.
 
Thank you for replying, I signed up for this about a week ago, but it caught my interest the second i saw it. I did check Communication and Noncommunication by Cephalopods and Cephalopod Behavior, along with Octupus and Squid: The Soft Intelligence by Jacques Cousteau and Brain and Behavior in Cephalopods by M. J. Wells.
 
Hi VampireSquid
I don't know if you are still looking for information but if you do have access to a university library and can look them up then papers by Jennifer A. Mather and/or Roland Anderson could be useful to you. Hope this helps. :smile:
 
Hi There, I finished my research paper and I will Have to present it in front of a panel of judges next week. I attached the paper here, let me know if it works!
 

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mmhhh didn´t like the article very much...

what does intelligence mean - in scientific terms?
Keeping this huge topic in mind I think it is not safe to say, Cephalopods are "enormously intelligent". They are really intelligent compared to all other invertebrates, right. But it´s safer to speak of "complex behavior".

What did the 'judges' say? And what was the context of your talk, what´s your age?
 
Major Mess;137565 said:
mmhhh didn´t like the article very much...

what does intelligence mean - in scientific terms?
Keeping this huge topic in mind I think it is not safe to say, Cephalopods are "enormously intelligent". They are really intelligent compared to all other invertebrates, right. But it´s safer to speak of "complex behavior".

What did the 'judges' say? And what was the context of your talk, what´s your age?

did like th post very much
what does mmhhhh mean - in scientific terms?
 
Hey Vampire Squid,

Good job on the paper. Nice work on making us actually see it feeding on the clam :smile:
By the way, what were you being judged on? Hope you did well.

As for any naysayers out there...remember that encouragement works much better than criticism at early ages (i.e. high school), well at any age for that matter.
 
Well done Ben, I enjoyed your paper.

Major Mess Honesty is fine, in this context though constructive criticism is even better! Remember the author of this paper was a high school student, taking on a very difficult subject that many fully trained biologists struggle with. I agree the definition of relative intelligence is difficult, he did cover it in one of the later paragraphs where he cites Jennifer Mather

"According to Jennifer Mather (Rogue Nature, 2007), “the ability to take in information form the environment, learn it, keep it, build on it, use it, react with it; that’s what we mean by intelligence,” "

With that definition and from many years observing octopus I'd agree they show intelligence, the level of that intelligence however, is still undetermined.

My :twocents:

J
 
Hi

This is something, I really hate about forums: why do I have to defend my earlier post now???
Lets go back to it: I asked, what his age was and what the circumstance for his paper was! It is quite okay for a highschool paper which was written in about a week. It would be a very bad Bachelor thesis. Agree?

My critic was not, that the whole paper is a complete waste, I said it is not safe to speak of enormous intelligence if compared to other animals than invertebrates. Whats wrong with that? Its very important - especially if you talk about such a complex topic as intelligence - to write about what intelligence means and how the writer compared it to other animals! What about rats, dogs, some birds...? Are they all stupid compared to Octopus? Why is that so?

I think the cited sentence from Mather doesn´t define intelligence enough. Even insects can do that!

Maybe we can go back to the initial questions?

Bye
 
Grüss Dich, Major Mess,

You did raise some valid points, and I don't think anyone is intending for you to have to defend your earlier post - others just wanted to chime in with some support for VampireSquid, since it can be disheartening for a young scientist to read 'didn't like the article very much' as the first posted feedback in a forum of ceph-heads, most of whom are older and perhaps more experienced. I interpret the general sentiment in this thread as wanting to encourage VampireSquid, a possible budding teuthologist who wrote a high-school level paper (rather than to jump on you for raising questions). Should VS continue with ceph science/research, the depth and scope of the writing will probably evolve to the standards at each level of qualification.
 
Thanks Kat.......that's exactly what I meant!


Sorry MM if you thought I meant for you to defend your opinion! You are quite right that the definition of what constitutes intelligence is difficult and very interesting!

I guess many people are actually arguing sapience over sentience! (or I could be wrong !)

Cheers

Jean
 

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