# Animals and Cognitive Functions



## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

So, I've been thinking, a bit, about the thoughts my dog has. She definitely does gauge the external reactions of the people around her, and she at least sometimes will remember the past outcomes of behaviors she's engaged in. She'll occasionally (but not as often as you'd think) note that a thing is there and what it does. 

And I've now realized those could be described as Fe, Si, and Se. As functions. So now I've got to thinking: Do animals have all the cognitive functions humans do, and can we make some general rules about how animals type that are either similar to or distinct from how humans type?

I've currently decided they probably aren't Ne or Ni- users, really, since that would require _way_ more effectiveness at thinking about concepts than I've seen in them. But!


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## Aha (Mar 6, 2014)

It is an interesting topic, but you could injure someones pride comparing their type to those of animals.


Though, I agree that in the process of evolution our brain convoluted a certain processes that now helps us to progress. Those which separate us from animals

Isn't it better to try and imagine the new cognitive functions for the future generations?


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

Aha said:


> It is an interesting topic, but you could injure someones pride comparing their type to those of animals.


True. I suppose I should say right now then that I don't think having _any_ type whatsoever is more "like the animals" than any other in any meaningful sense. Using the same functions as someone else doesn't make you the exact same, in terms of intelligence or anything else. 




> Though, I agree that in the process of evolution our brain convoluted a certain processes that now helps us to progress. Those which separate us from animals


Oh, I don't really know about that _yet_...I suppose we evolved vastly _better_ abilities of conceptual thinking, and probably a greater inclination towards thinking about our own personal values, at least. 



> Isn't it better to try and imagine the new cognitive functions for the future generations?


That'd be...a lot harder, though, as we'd have to comprehend an entire new method of interacting with the world (As each non-i/e letter is a different one--S the physical, N through words and ideas, T relating to making comparisons between facts and F analyzing emotions). And what we have in the world to analyze are physical things, concepts, logical relationships and people, so...I don't even know if it's possible to have other cognitive types. XD


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## Tranquility (Dec 16, 2013)

Look into the Pavlovian temperaments. Animals do not use functions, though they do fit into 4 active/reactive temperaments.


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## Angina Jolie (Feb 13, 2014)

I was thinking the exact same thing - what MBTI type would a dog be?  And those 3 functions came to my find.


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

EthereaEthos said:


> Look into the Pavlovian temperaments. Animals do not use functions, though they do fit into 4 active/reactive temperaments.


Well, it'll take a bit for me to get access to the studies on Pavlovian Temperaments, but I find the idea that they lack cognitive functioning strange--animals clearly have cognition, as tests on dogs and apes clearly show. Crows can even demonstrate an ability to insight learn, as some studies have shown. And the cognitive functions, meanwhile, are simply particular areas in which cognition can focus itself. Why would realizing that a certain action might yield a possible result, trying the action, and then doing it again when it works _not_ be considered Se or Ne, then maybe Te or Si, in animals when it would be in humans?

Source for dog cognition:





Source for crow cognition:


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## Tranquility (Dec 16, 2013)

Chained Divinity said:


> Well, it'll take a bit for me to get access to the studies on Pavlovian Temperaments, but I find the idea that they lack cognitive functioning strange--animals clearly have cognition, as tests on dogs and apes clearly show. Crows can even demonstrate an ability to insight learn, as some studies have shown. And the cognitive functions, meanwhile, are simply particular areas in which cognition can focus itself. Why would realizing that a certain action might yield a possible result, trying the action, and then doing it again when it works _not_ be considered Se or Ne, then maybe Te or Si, in animals when it would be in humans?
> 
> Source for dog cognition:
> 
> ...


They are purely impulsive and instinctual. If they had functions at all, it is only the irrational ones, and they would be undifferentiated. They do not exhibit rational value sets, so the judging functions are out of the picture.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

There was a thread on this in the recent past, and I will say the same thing: the human mind is a product of of thousands of years of culture, to go along with the biological brain. You can make rough calculations, but they weren't made for animals.

Plato was big on ideas. They have their own reality. Jung agreed. The internal human psyche has its own, eternal reality. Sure, people and minds die, but as long as any humans live, the "internal world" of humans also does. So the human mind has been an internally, consistent reality, as much as the outside physical world is. It has its own psychic reality. Plato shared the same world as we do, inside. So..... dogs don't have that. I think Jung said that primitive man basically navigated the world with sensation. They didn't have thought or feeling. I think they had intuition though. Anyway, other animals don't have thought or feeling. So you can't type them.


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## Tad Cooper (Apr 10, 2010)

Aha said:


> It is an interesting topic, but you could injure someones pride comparing their type to those of animals.


How? We ARE animals (part of the Vertebrates-Mammalia-Placentals).

I find it hard to type other animals because they have different ways of expressing themselves, but I think they definitely have personalities (well, more derived groups, maybe not insects haha). 
I typed my cat as an IxTJ, but he can be very affectionate too because he's secure round me and my family.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

tine said:


> I typed my cat as an IxTJ, but he can be very affectionate too because he's secure round me and my family.


How exactly does your cat use extraverted thinking judgment then?


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FallingSlowly said:


> How exactly does your cat use extraverted thinking judgment then?



Did you watch the video sources I provided for you? They aren't precisely specific to cats, but they definitely do prove that there are dogs that use something that looks like extraverted Feeling Judgement and introverted Thinking, and crows use extraverted Sensing (Intuition possibly?) and probably introverted Thinking.

So given all that, why do you find the idea of a cat using extraverted thinking Judgement so implausible?


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## Tad Cooper (Apr 10, 2010)

FallingSlowly said:


> How exactly does your cat use extraverted thinking judgment then?


Well it would work in conjunction with another function, probably Si. It works like this!
"It also helps us notice when something is missing, like when someone says he or she is going to talk about four topics and talks about only three. 
In general, it allows us to compartmentalize many aspects of our lives so we can do what is necessary to accomplish our objectives."


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

Chained Divinity said:


> Did you watch the video sources I provided for you? They aren't precisely specific to cats, but they definitely do prove that there are dogs that use something that looks like extraverted Feeling Judgement and introverted Thinking, and crows use extraverted Sensing (Intuition possibly?) and probably introverted Thinking.
> 
> So given all that, why do you find the idea of a cat using extraverted thinking Judgement so implausible?


lol at crows using Ti. A crow is not even self aware. Dogs don't even have imagination, much less any kind of logical thinking.


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FearAndTrembling said:


> lol at crows using Ti. A crow is not even self aware.


They haven't demonstrated an ability to question their own desires, sure. But first of all, Ti has nothing to do with that, and beyond that they still can differentiate between "me" and "someone else", because you pretty much have to do that when navigating the world.

Unless you think their figuring out how to operate a crude vending machine by referring to recollections of prior experiences with the same stuff a different function entirely, like Se, Ne or Te. In which case I'd like to hear about it. My understanding of the functions is still a bit weak, I'll admit.



> Dogs don't even have imagination, much less any kind of logical thinking.


Well, now I know you didn't watch the video source. 

In that video, a dog that had been trained to fetch toys it knew the (individual) names of was asked to fetch a different toy which it had never seen or heard the name of. The dog then was able to fetch the correct toy on the first try. 

Now, you can't point to training to explain that, as the dog had no prior experiences with the toy. You can't argue that it was pulling a Clever Hans because it had consistently gotten the correct toy in multiple cases prior, and did so while behind a couch and not looking at the tester's face at all. The _only_ remaining explanation is that it inferred, from its knowledge of what the other toys were, that the name it had never heard before matched with the one toy it didn't know the name of.


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## AST (Oct 1, 2013)

Cats strike me as very ISTP creatures. Ants remind me of Te (very structured and command-based). Spiders have a danger sense that reminds me of Ni (yeah, the "Spidey Sense" was based on a real thing). "Intelligent" animals seem to have more Ne-Ti qualities than other animals.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

Chained Divinity said:


> Did you watch the video sources I provided for you? They aren't precisely specific to cats, but they definitely do prove that there are dogs that use something that looks like extraverted Feeling Judgement and introverted Thinking, and crows use extraverted Sensing (Intuition possibly?) and probably introverted Thinking.
> 
> So given all that, why do you find the idea of a cat using extraverted thinking Judgement so implausible?


It's implausible because learning via conditioning, or even basic deductive reasoning (we don't even need to talk about inductive reasoning I guess) is not the same as applying logic or passing an ethical value judgment. And for one to be existent, the other has to be, too in Jungian terms (no Thinking without at least unconscious Feeling, no Feeling without at least unconscious Thinking).

For e.g. Feeling judgment to happen, you need ethics and moral principles. Show me the animal who subscribes to those concepts (not purely based on instinct). A dog doesn't in the sense of Jung, unless your definition of Fe is vastly different from his, in which case the discussion is sort of moot.

I know about the crow experiments, but you probably also know that they all failed the U-tube tests (the only counter-intuitive one amongst the different tests, and I'm not using "intuitive" in the Jungian sense here).

I'm not saying animals can't learn. If you're hell-bent on assigning functions, the idea of undifferentiated irrational ones is probably closest (mostly S, because N already presents you with a whole host of problems that are very specific to humans). I am saying however that the concept of especially rational functions is not applicable to animals because it is _entirely_ based on the human psyche. 

Concepts like the collective unconscious and archetypes have no bearing to the animal world IMHO. We are basically talking semantics here.


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FallingSlowly said:


> It's implausible because learning via conditioning, or even basic deductive reasoning (we don't even need to talk about inductive reasoning I guess) is not the same as applying logic or passing an ethical value judgment. And for one to be existent, the other has to be, too in Jungian terms (no Thinking without at least unconscious Feeling, no Feeling without at least unconscious Thinking).
> 
> For e.g. Feeling judgment to happen, you need ethics and moral principles. Show me the animal who subscribes to those concepts (not purely based on instinct). A dog doesn't in the sense of Jung, unless your definition of Fe is vastly different from his, in which case the discussion is sort of moot.


Ahhhhh, okay then. XD

I was going to ask FearandTrembling what he meant by "having thinking and feeling" _first_, but I do stupid things on impulse occasionally and here we are. XD

I do still think we can create a meaningful way of typing them based off the definitions commonly used in MBTI, even if there's a thing in which they don't quite match (because, in actual fact, there are expressions of Fe that aren't ethical), but I would agree that using the precise definition you're correct. 



> I know about the crow experiments, but you probably also know that they all failed the U-tube tests (the only counter-intuitive one amongst the different tests, and I'm not using "intuitive" in the Jungian sense here).


I actually don't know about the U-tube tests, but I'd be happy to look at a link of them or the like.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

Wolves hunt in coordinated packs. Many animals show forms of organization even altruism in primates. Elephants are capable problem solvers and they bury their dead. I don't think animals are inherently mindless creatures or incapable of thought.


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

enigmatic serpent said:


> Wolves hunt in coordinated packs. Many animals show forms of organization even altruism in primates. Elephants are capable problem solvers and they bury their dead. I don't think animals are inherently mindless creatures or incapable of thought.


_This_ I also agree with, though. I mean even flies have shown at least non declarative memory...


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

enigmatic serpent said:


> Wolves hunt in coordinated packs. Many animals show forms of organization even altruism in primates. Elephants are capable problem solvers and they bury their dead. I don't think animals are inherently mindless creatures or incapable of thought.


This is a straw man. 

How much has the social system of chimps and elephants evolved in the past thousand years? What new chimp created a new idea, that captured his species, and lead it to retain it to this day, that improved that species? None. Absolutely none. Morality and mind is not just blindly following instinct. When you're an animal, your morality never changes. The morality of your species doesn't change. There is no reasoning force of culture, of past, retained experience. Man has changed biologically very little in the last thousand or so years, he has changed much psychologically . Our societies are totally different. Animals remain stagnant. They have the same system they had a thousand years ago.

*when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.*


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

For fun,l type the average dog ESTP.

People are quick to say ESFJ, but l think a dog is simply a very loyal ESTP, who isn't corrupted by human activity.


The inferior Ni being responsible for the random ''psychic'' occurrences in dogs and other animals.

For fun. l'm going to have a look at those animal temperaments mentioned above later too.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

Chained Divinity said:


> I actually don't know about the U-tube tests, but I'd be happy to look at a link of them or the like.






Last test of the bunch (the fourth one is sort of a fail, too).


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FearAndTrembling said:


> This is a straw man.
> 
> How much has the social system of chimps and elephants evolved in the past thousand years? What new chimp created a new idea, that captured his species, and lead it to retain it to this day, that improved that species? None. Absolutely none. Morality and mind is not just blindly following instinct. When you're an animal, your morality never changes. The morality of your species doesn't change. There is no reasoning force of culture, of past, retained experience. Man has changed biologically very little in the last thousand or so years, he has changed much psychologically . Our societies are totally different. Animals remain stagnant. They have the same system they had a thousand years ago.
> 
> *when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.*







Watch this from about 2:58 to 6:44. Crows have taught each other to use traffic to crack open nuts, and pay attention to the walk/don't walk signs in traffic. 

I mean, beyond that it's at least demonstrated as possible for chimps and bonobos to develop sign language, as with Kanzi the bonobo, and that means they can also learn from others. Elephants have picked up paintbrushes and used them crudely as well, something they don't do in the wild. So humans can spread ideas to them, at the very least, which means they have the capacity to learn and retain ideas. Why would that capacity exist without ideas to be received?


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FallingSlowly said:


> Last test of the bunch (the fourth one is sort of a fail, too).



Ahm...how is it a failure? That looked to me like a success via trial and error...

The objective was to get the treat in the center, which the crow did successfully, albeit after a couple tries. And frankly, it would've taken me longer than a couple tries, too.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

FearAndTrembling said:


> This is a straw man.
> 
> How much has the social system of chimps and elephants evolved in the past thousand years? What new chimp created a new idea, that captured his species, and lead it to retain it to this day, that improved that species? None. Absolutely none. Morality and mind is not just blindly following instinct. When you're an animal, your morality never changes. The morality of your species doesn't change. There is no reasoning force of culture, of past, retained experience. Man has changed biologically very little in the last thousand or so years, he has changed much psychologically . Our societies are totally different. Animals remain stagnant. They have the same system they had a thousand years ago.
> 
> *when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.*


The system was passed down through basic communication, basic teaching and language. Perhaps the most important of these though is imitation. The clearest way we can see animals learn is through imitation. The function I would draw from this may be most analogous to Si, (but to say it is Si would not appreciate Si in its fullest) maintaining tradition. The very fact that animal culture remained stable is a sign that it exists, if each generation did something different there would be no sign of culture whatsoever. Are all conformists without culture? I do not believe so, even in the animal extreme that we do not yet fully comprehend.


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## Word Dispenser (May 18, 2012)

I know people are gonna come in here and say this is a ridiculous notion, but...

This is a ridiculous notion.

Kidding. Just an impulse. 

Anyway... Honestly, my only oats about attaching cognitive functions to a-minals, is the stereotypes behind the respective types themselves.

Although generally, animals are not necessarily 'self-aware' in the same way we are... And, it may be difficult to say how much or how little they _are_...

And each one does _seem _to possess different temperaments, at least. 

I'd hazard to say they are _still _processing information around them, and drawing some kind of conclusions, and taking some kind of actions, even if they are possessed by instinct, senses, and 'animal emotion' rather than 'human reason'...

How different are they from us, really, though? I suppose it depends on the kind of animal. Our organs can be practically identical, except for size and shape. If the insides are so similar, to me, it doesn't seem so very far removed to assume they have some kind of similarity psychologically, even if it is slight.

Pigs, for instance, have been said to have the intelligence of a 3 year old human toddler.

I think there's been ethical arguments on these forums about typing children younger than 14. Or was it 16?

I'm not sure if we would be using the same kind of system for a personality analysis of animals, though. But, it certainly seems tempting sometimes. And awesome.

If we were to do this, it would not really be 'complete'.

But, I totally do it. Just for fun.:kitteh:


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

Lady O.W. Bro said:


> For fun,l type the average dog ESTP.
> 
> People are quick to say ESFJ, but l think a dog is simply a very loyal ESTP, who isn't corrupted by human activity.
> 
> ...


Dogs have different personalities, like humans. Poodles, and other toy dogs, use Fi. I think most dogs actually use Fe though, because they mimic, and channel the emotion of those around them. Most of them are extroverts obviously. German Shepherd could be like an ESTJ, and a golden retriever ESTP. I feel like I have had this conversation before. I'm sure I have.


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

FearAndTrembling said:


> Dogs have different personalities, like humans. Poodles, and other toy dogs, use Fi. I think most dogs actually use Fe though, because they mimic, and channel the emotion of those around them. Most of them are extroverts obviously. German Shepherd could be like an ESTJ, and a golden retriever ESTP. I feel like I have had this conversation before. I'm sure I have.


http://personalitycafe.com/myers-briggs-forum/177554-does-mbti-works-animals-too.html#post4642781


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## 54-46 ThatsMyNumber (Mar 26, 2011)

I can't believe some of the previous posts I have read, animals have a soul, they have intelligence, they have their own unique personality. I can't believe this is even up for discussion. Yep it's true they don't speak our language but they do their best to communicate with us, are you listening or you completely unaware? I pray to god that the people who refuse to accept this blatantly obvious fact are not pet owners because if you are your pet is suffering and being neglected. Why did all the animals head for the hills before any humans did right before the tsunami hit Indonesia. There is different levels of awareness and intelligence, humans have mastered some but fail in many areas that animals thrive in. Why can't we coexist as equals, we are very different but both doing our best to survive and have our own unique experience as a living being on this planet. Let's face it if you see them and treat them as equals then it will be that much harder to eat that cheeseburger, steak, hot dog, or whatever piece of animal flesh that is completely unnecessary to your survival. Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul has remained unawakened. Wake up.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

I thought about this as well and thought that if they did they might only have 2 at max, and extroverted one and a introverted one.

Cats seem to be pretty intuitive but in a less developed way we are, I could see Ni in them.
They see something that makes them curious and they follow that lead.

Yet animals lack a creative conscious so I wouldn't think so, yet you don't have to be conscious of your cognitive functions to use them, it's almost the opposite.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

Chained Divinity said:


> Ahm...how is it a failure? That looked to me like a success via trial and error...
> 
> The objective was to get the treat in the center, which the crow did successfully, albeit after a couple tries. And frankly, it would've taken me longer than a couple tries, too.


That's not how these experiments are conducted. It's _not_ about randomly getting the treat, that's decidedly not the objective, because this could also be achieved by every other animal completely by chance/luck.

The fourth experiment is about the width of the tubes, and the amount of objects needed to displace the water to get to the treat. That one is sort of a fail because the crows don't get that it needs fewer items to displace the water in the narrow tube. They would have fully passed if they hadn't given up on the wider one and therefore realised that it just needs more items to displace the water.

The fifth one is a complete fail because obviously only one tube is connected to the centre. To pass, the crows need to realise that only dropping items into one side raises the water levels instead of randomly dropping items into both sides. They fail the very moment they drop the _second_ stone into the blue tube, because they should have realised after the first drop that it doesn't raise the water level. Normally developed elementary school kids pass that test without problems btw (it is also commonly used in developmental psychology in different variants/forms).

That's what causal reasoning is about, and the crows fail at it. Trial and error OTOH is unsystematic and doesn't use organised thought or methodology if it stops at that most basic level (i.e. without true insight and the ability to form a theory). That's the thing the crows are doing okay at, which is impressive all the same, but it also shows that there are no rational functions in the Jungian sense involved.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

@_54-46 ThatsMyNumber_
No one doubts that animals have their own form of intelligence, can learn and feel. 

What we doubt is that Jungian cognitive functions are applicable to them due to the very fact that the whole theory is very specific to the human psyche. One would need to have a closer look at Jung though, instead of assigning random character and personality traits to functions, like so many people sadly do...

The problem of this thread is not what animals can or cannot do. It's not having an understanding of Jungian theory, and what functions actually are.


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## Aha (Mar 6, 2014)

tine said:


> How? We ARE animals (part of the Vertebrates-Mammalia-Placentals).
> 
> I find it hard to type other animals because they have different ways of expressing themselves, but I think they definitely have personalities (well, more derived groups, maybe not insects haha).
> I typed my cat as an IxTJ, but he can be very affectionate too because he's secure round me and my family.


Sure we are... :crazy: 

Pfff...then - My dog is ESFP and cat is INFJ


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## 54-46 ThatsMyNumber (Mar 26, 2011)

FallingSlowly said:


> @_54-46 ThatsMyNumber_
> No one doubts that animals have their own form of intelligence, can learn and feel.
> 
> What we doubt is that Jungian cognitive functions are applicable to them due to the very fact that the whole theory is very specific to the human psyche. One would need to have a closer look at Jung though, instead of assigning random character and personality traits to functions, like so many people sadly do...
> ...


No one?
Sadly?
Problem?


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

FallingSlowly said:


> That's not how these experiments are conducted. It's _not_ about randomly getting the treat, that's decidedly not the objective, because this could also be achieved by every other animal completely by chance/luck.


Trial-and-error is _not_ random. It's a process. You test one thing, see if it works, run some more tests on it, maybe, if you want to double-check (one of the elements of the scientific method involves retesting, in fact, so the idea that putting in a stone in the unconnected one indicates some lack of understanding is flawed, for that as well as many other reasons).



> The fourth experiment is about the width of the tubes, and the amount of objects needed to displace the water to get to the treat. That one is sort of a fail because the crows don't get that it needs fewer items to displace the water in the narrow tube. They would have fully passed if they hadn't given up on the wider one and therefore realised that it just needs more items to displace the water.


That more reflects a problem with their understanding of spatial relationships than causality--they knew the first one wasn't working, for some reason, so they tried making it completely different.



> The fifth one is a complete fail because obviously only one tube is connected to the centre. To pass, the crows need to realise that only dropping items into one side raises the water levels instead of randomly dropping items into both sides. They fail the very moment they drop the _second_ stone into the blue tube, because they should have realised after the first drop that it doesn't raise the water level.


Okay, so there are several problems with this test--first of all, there's the thing I said earlier about trial-and-error requiring at least a small amount of understanding of causality to function, plus numerous scientific tests basically using that. 

Second of all, I can't really see how one could say the crows don't understand causality while they manage to put the rock in the tube at all. To do that requires some understanding of "If I put the rock in the tube, the food will rise", already. Not equivalent to a human understanding, _perhaps_, but regardless it's only difference is in scale. 

More than that, though, I don't see how taking two tries to realize the relationship means anything, to be honest. To illustrate why, I'll tell a story: 

So very recently, actually, my computer broke down. The mousepad just completely stopped working and wouldn't click. I tried clicking it several times after the first try, and eventually left because I realized it wasn't working. However, eventually, even when I knew of no actual information that would change the status of that mousepad, I went back and clicked it again. Numerous times. 

Now, by the standards of that tester, I'd have failed to understand that clicking the mouse doesn't work anymore. But that's not a reasonable analysis. Rather, what you or I might say there is that I _wanted_ it to work, and I, having absolutely no clue what was going on, simply tried the only method I knew of again. And, to the crow at first, both the tubes would have been equivalent. A failure of the first try to work might've meant that _neither_ tube was connected, and the crow, at a loss, tried it again because that was the way it knew about, before figuring out that maybe it ought to try the other tube. 



> Normally developed elementary school kids pass that test without problems btw (it is also commonly used in developmental psychology in different variants/forms).


Normally developed elementary schoolers pass some tests adults fail at, mostly related to figuring out new ways of doing things. So I wonder if elementary school kids passing the test necessarily means human adults would. They could easily get stuck in frustration, too. 



> That's what causal reasoning is about, and the crows fail at it. Trial and error OTOH is unsystematic and doesn't use organised thought or methodology if it stops at that most basic level (i.e. without true insight and the ability to form a theory). That's the thing the crows are doing okay at, which is impressive all the same, but it also shows that there are no rational functions in the Jungian sense involved.


To me, taking longer to understand the causal relationship isn't the same as failing to understand it, and it's possible that _that_ isn't even what's going on here. And as long as the understanding is made, the cognitive leap of the function was made.


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## FallingSlowly (Jul 1, 2013)

54-46 ThatsMyNumber said:


> No one?
> Sadly?
> Problem?


Are you asking me something specific? 

As for the "sadly" (just in case): That didn't refer to animals, but to the general trend to turn functions into this farcical stereotype-fest, e.g. "J is so organised" or "F is so emotional". I always run for the hills if someone says how e.g. all INFJs are judgers and so "J", when they're in fact Ni doms (= perceivers and therefore irrational).

Never mind, OT...



Chained Divinity said:


> Trial-and-error is not random. It's a process. You test one thing, see if it works, run some more tests on it, maybe, if you want to double-check (one of the elements of the scientific method involves retesting, in fact, so the idea that putting in a stone in the unconnected one indicates some lack of understanding is flawed, for that as well as many other reasons).


I wouldn't argue with that, but that's not what I've written either. What I've said is that possibly a lot of animals could get to the treat at random/by chance (I didn't say the crows did), and that the test is not set up as "crow gets to treat = test success". The success is determined by other variables than just getting the treat.

Trial and error is of course not completely random - what I said is that it is unsystematic if it isn't used with insight and organised thought, e.g. to test a hypothesis, or the ability to change the approach. The very fact that a treat is involved (=reward) also suggests a strong element of learning through conditioning (which also applies to humans of course), which I repeat is impressive on its own due to the way they go on about it. It would be a very interesting question to see what happened if you took the treat away though (I don't know if that's been tried, but I doubt it). That would really be the true test.

Let's word it this way then: One could say the crows have a very basic ability to understand causality (I'd reckon quite a few animals do where conditioning is involved, or better: They might also be easy to mix up), but it is incomplete. It doesn't include counter-intuitive scenarios or abstraction, or something like associative reasoning. And because the level of causal reasoning is so basic, one could actually argue it more hinders than helps with higher level tasks (I think you're right in saying: "...and the crow, at a loss, tried it again because that was the way it knew about,...")

Putting all of this aside: Nothing of this relates to Jungian functions apart from maybe S. The whole concept is built on human history, human ethics and morality, archetypes etc. On top of that, it is by no means scientific - it is just a theory, and Jung himself was notoriously vague about it.

Animals have cognitive skills, I am not arguing that at all. Whole fields of biology and psychology study nothing else (I did the latter btw, but the human kind ). What I'm trying to say is that this is not the same as trying to shoehorn an animal into Jungian theory, because it simply isn't applicable. If you haven't read Jung's works yet (and not just "Psychological Types"), maybe do so, I think you'd quickly understand what I mean...


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## KraChZiMan (Mar 23, 2013)

Applying human psychology to animals... wow.


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## Aha (Mar 6, 2014)

Still, what are the cognitive functions of a jellyfish


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## owlet (May 7, 2010)

I think there seems to be a general lack of understanding that, as has been previously stated, humans ARE animals. Sure, the MBTI system was designed based on humans, but that doesn't mean it can't be used on any other creature. Humans aren't as different as they like to think and it's pure ignorance/lack of imagination that would prevent us from using it on any other species. Other animals tend to use different methods of communication (heavy emphasis on body language) but that doesn't mean they don't have certain cognitive processes. But then, how can we know? We're completely ignorant when it comes to understanding something which doesn't fit into our human-based views. Science (and therefore psycholgy) is all respective to how we as a species view and measure the world, so it can only go so far.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Perhaps applicable to more "sophisticated" animals such as dolphins or certain species of primeapes, but say dogs and cats? No. The reason for this is because functions don't quite work the way you guys seem to pain them as in here.


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