Talk:Elephant cognition

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 12 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nikogonzalez.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Romanticizing
I stumbled on this page, and found it unscholarly. The language is sloppy. It's romanticizing. Elephants have brain to body size ratios of 1.88. Humans 7.44. They communicate, and do so with attributes of great scale. They suffer. They're very social. Put it in perspective. BrianCoyle

Elephant Death Rituals
The text mentions elephants engaging in death 'rituals' (not sure if that's the proper term or if that's anthropomorphism, sorry on my part) and mourning of the dead, and then states that it's the only animal aside from humans and Neanderthal to engage in them, then somewhat awkwardly backpedals mid-sentence sort of like "Oh yeah, and also these other 20 examples and also this entire Family of living beings". I would change it, but I'm not sure what parts of it are even true enough to Wikipedia's standards to edit out as the sentence has a citation needed caption, and while I've heard of all of these things before in the past, I have to admit that the plural of anecdote isn't data or evidence, and I don't want to add more hearsay to the article. Hopefully somebody with more understanding of this phenomena can clarify on this, as it is, in my opinion very interesting and worth recording if we can get it brought up to proper citation standards. DamienGranz (talk) 03:54, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It is indeed very oddly phrased for Wikipedia, I wonder if it's directly copied from the referenced source (which of course is a book, meaning no instant access to check it)... In any case it should definitely be written in more formal and accurate way. 2A02:8109:8080:2C4:6844:C8E5:394:511F (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Untitled
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)

Self awareness
"The Asian elephants in the study also displayed this type of behavior when standing in front of a 2.5 m-by-2.5 m mirror - they inspected the rear and brought food close to the mirror for consumption." --> This means the animal in question is NOT self aware, as they seek another animal from behind the mirror or try to feed it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.214.179 (talk) 02:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

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)

>> Without being able to speak their language or they speak ours is it even possible for us to construct a test of self-awareness in other beings?

The whole reference to language on this page is improper, at least as generally accepted and understood. The Nat Geo article cited itself uses "language" in quotation marks; there is no doubt these highly intelligent animals communicate, but generally accepted features of actual _language_ (recursion, arbitrariness, productivity, etc.) are unattributed in animal communication. One may plead that this is a species-centric view on our part, but it these features do separate our communication from theirs. This is the same conflation that occurs on the "Animal Language" page. talk — Preceding undated comment added 20:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

>> Humankind sees what it can build and calls itself self-aware, sentient, intelligent, but to be fair, no other animal with a brain as large as or larger than ours has hands and fingers. Even if dolphins, elephants, and whales did have intelligence on par or greater than ours we would likely not recognize it. 68.229.87.128 (talk) 06:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea that other species are not self aware is absurd. There's mountains of evidence. Ants pass the mirror test for a start. Bees we know have capacity for consciousness too. Arachnids and Flies lie consciously. It's vastly more likely all creatures, Insect, Reptile, Fish, Mammal, Bird, Arachnid and so on, are intelligent, self aware and conscious than not. The whole section needs re-writing and evaluating. 86.2.213.25 (talk) 21:18, 27 February 2019 (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)

This is a link to a documentary about the abusive methods used to train elephants to paint for tourists. http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/6673/The-Last-Elephants-in-Thailand Im not sure if this can be used as a reliable citation for this statement: "Although the images were drawn by the elephants, there was always a person assisting and guiding the movement." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.30.253 (talk) 06:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't the snopes listing for that video be "partly true" instead of "true" ? This is what it says on the snopes page itself, and it changes the meaning a lot... Cyril Heck (talk) 12:48, 9 April 2014 (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)

Yea...I've read this..."when elephants weep" goes into detail on this account....add it in! I might try to do up another section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The duskydolphin (talk • contribs) 21:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

What is this thing about "Matriarch", vandalism? If its not then its super unclear — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.157.51.35 (talk) 19:42, 2 November 2018 (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)

I've heard of this...the elephant named Rosie I think...in the book "when elephants weep"...add it in!The duskydolphin (talk) 21:37, 25 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)

Well presumably, as there are few rooms that elephants can fit/get into one would assume the answer is no. 59.38.32.8 (talk) 05:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * this should not be a matter of "room" size. instead of a room one could use a yard. the only thing that matters is the use of a makett, or map-like depiction of the location. I dont know of such an experiment.176.63.176.112 (talk) 21:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC).

Memory
I'm amazed to see there is nothing about this fabulous elephant memory in this article. Elephants are reported to have exceptionally strong memories; even if this is an urban legend, the article ought to mention it. Steinbach (talk) 13:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Their memory is indeed proverbial. Cursory googling turned up a couple of sources: (reporting on ) and  (I couldn't find the original study online). Someone with access to a decent library could make use of these. 71.248.115.187 (talk) 01:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In order to include information about elephants memory, does the lemma need to be adjusted? If you look into memory you find that intelligence is not even mentioned there, so it should be rather separate subjects. :These are further good sources, that can be used in the article as evidence about elephants memories:
 * , good article with lots of sources.
 * --Berny68 (talk) 18:56, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Elephant society
In this section it says Cynthia Moss, the author of Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family recalls the event it then describes, however on page 16-17 of that book the author says that she did not actually see the event, but it is made up of past observations, circumstantial evidence and made-up material based on her knowledge of elephants.

This is my first time posting on a Talk page, and finding a 'mistake' so I hope I've followed the correct procedure. 85.211.70.221 (talk) 22:01, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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possible absencet of causal reasoning
i wonder if the experiments could be repeated with unschooled, untrained humans for a comparison. most exemplars of the human species are educated and trained fro a lot of tasks in school, like the use of procedures for for problem solving accumulated through human culture/civilization. the use of theese mental tools seems "natural" because all people are trained to operate in a more or less uniform technical civilization. elephants are obviously lacking this kind of civilizational framework as well as a specialized education for logical problem solving. so a comparison of the test results would be more relevant if the elephants' scores were compared to untrained, uneducated humans" results. perhaps a comparison of preschool age humans with their relative age-counterparts in elephants would be feasible. 176.63.176.112 (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC).

Notes on Unique Cortical Structures and Other Structural Differences and Appropriate Level of Detail for This Page
See this write-up for an overview of some of the details.

This Wiki page does essentially two things. It describes elephant intelligence and mental and emotional abilities in relative and qualitative terms and in doing so also goes into some detail about the elephant brain's physiological structures. I'm making this note because the level of detail is inconsistent. I have two thoughts. The first is that should as much detail as possible be desired for this page, information like the above is certainly relevant as is other missing information. Second, perhaps it would be better to have two pages if we devote a great deal of space, as the page has to some extent, on the elephant brain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephmey (talk • contribs) 22:23, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Quality of Statements and Sources, Conflicting Sources, and Statements Conflicting with Sources
Many statements on this page are misleading. For example, the statement "Asian elephants have the greatest volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing of all existing land animals" is misleading as the neuron count is much more important than the amount of space those neurons occupy. The statement, however, seems to imply that either Asian elephants have the most cortical neurons (they don't ), or that they're capable of using the empty spaces between neurons to process info.

Many statements also lack a credible source, such as the previous example about cortical volume. While the statement itself is definitely plausible, it is made in just two papers (one and two), which were both made by the brother and sister team Benjamin and Lynette Hart. I could find no other sources for the statement.

Other statements use unreliable sources, such as "a 2011 article published by ABC Science states that, 'elephants [are as] smart as chimps, [and] dolphins'". Not only does the statement quote the title of the article (and not its contents), but the article itself makes many claims not found in what it links as its source, such as relating anything to dolphins.

Still other statements simply misquote their source, such as stating "In addition, elephants have a total of 300 billion neurons" when the source clearly states 257 billion neurons.

Then there are the sources which conflict with one another. An example can be seen in the opening paragraph, where the source of the (erroneously quoted) 300 billion neuron statement also states that elephants have about one-third the cortical neurons as humans. However, immediately after the 300 billion neuron statement, it goes on to say that elephants have the same number of cortical neurons as humans. The latter claim was a rough estimation made in 2000 with no scientific justification, used to pose a philosophical question.

Other statements toe the line between misleading and lie, such as "The elephant cortex has as many neurons as a human brain, suggesting convergent evolution". The first half is already erroneous (as previously mentioned), while the source cited for the second half describes a possible link between "adaptively evolved aerobic energy metabolism genes" and brain mass. Despite the statement seemingly claiming "number of neurons -> evolved to be smart like us", the source does not mention number of neurons, nor does it use neurons as the indicator for the pattern-based convergence.

This page desperately needs improvement.

Wiki contributor 67432 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Discrepancy with African elephant
On African elephant, it says "The elephant's brain is similar to a human brain in terms of structure and complexity; the elephant's cortex has as many neurons as that of a human brain,[47] suggesting convergent evolution.[48]". But then on elephant cognition, it says "Although initially estimated to have as many neurons as a human brain,[2] the elephant's cortex has about one-third of the number of neurons as a human brain.[1]". I don't know which one is right but it's contradictory.

Possible source doubles
Hi, I added an archive link for one of the Viegas sources; the same article seems to be currently available here(an archive link should be more stable anyway). The other one seems to be quite similar, with the benefit of linking to the paper about the test, which is already used as a source in this article. I was thinking this could be simplified, but I'm too lazy to check if some information would be missing by doing so. Have a nice day 176.247.138.114 (talk) 13:44, 20 August 2021 (UTC)