CAPABLE OF FEATS NO DEMOCRAT CAN MASTER


The marshmallow test, or Stanford marshmallow experiment, is pretty straightforward.

A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told if they don't eat the marshmallow, they'll get a second marshmallow in 15 minutes, and be allowed to eat both.

This ability to delay gratification demonstrates cognitive abilities such as future planning, and it was originally conducted to study how human cognition develops; specifically, at what age a human is smart enough to delay gratification if it means a better outcome later.

Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them right away.

Some primates can delay gratification, along with dogs, albeit inconsistently.

Scientists showed that common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) can refrain from eating a meal of crab meat in the morning once they have learnt dinner will be something they like much better - shrimp.

As a team of researchers led by behavioral ecologist Alexandra Schnell of the University of Cambridge point out in a new paper, however, in this case it's difficult to determine whether this change in foraging behavior in response to prey availability was also being governed by an ability to exert self-control.

So they designed another test, for six common cuttlefish. The cuttlefish were placed in a special tank with two enclosed chambers that had transparent doors so the animals could see inside. In the chambers were snacks - a less-preferred piece of raw king prawn in one, and a much more enticing live grass shrimp in the other.

The doors also had symbols on them that the cuttlefish had been trained to recognize. A circle meant the door would open straight away. A triangle meant the door would open after a time interval between 10 and 130 seconds. And a square, used only in the control condition, meant the door stayed closed indefinitely.

The researchers found that all of the cuttlefish in the test condition decided to wait for their preferred food (the live shrimp).

I doubt any DEMOCRAT could exercise enough self-discipline to resist instant gratification, and Joe Biden would probably try to stuff the marshmallow in his ear.


https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-children