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Are Animals Stuck In Time?
medicalnewstoday.com — Dog owners, who have noticed that their four-legged friend seem equally delighted to see them after five minutes away as five hours, may wonder if animals can tell when time passes.
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- pizzler, on 04/07/2008, -1/+87Animals have to have some sense of time, because my cat knows the time I come home from work and everyday about 30 min prior to my arrival, he sits in the window and starts meowing and waiting for me.......
- t0ny, on 04/07/2008, -2/+29Same here every night I come home from school 9 or 10 depending one the night my dog is sitting at the gate. And my mom says she normally goes outside to wait for me 5 to 10 mins before I get home.
- Ceadda, on 04/07/2008, -2/+25Unfortunately, this doesnt mean in either case that the dog/cat can tell time. It just means that they have a memory clue as to the when is occuring. I say this because I have 2 cats. Both successfully wait at the door as trip hazards in the dark for me to return home from work at the same time every day. They also do this for my wife.
Telling time? Not exactly.
On days off, I've noticed they only head for the door to greet my wife "after" the cuckoo clock goes off for 6 o'clock. Stop the clock, and they don't go to the door to wait.
What this basically means is that they have a memory of 6 cuckoo's thats close together with an arrival and they've put the two into one memory?
So basically, my cats can't tell time, but they do understand clocks? Maybe that's worse, oy.- ohmahgawd, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5I don't know why you're being dug down. I have two cats and notice similar things. They can't tell time, they just have a good memory. For instance I wake up just after someone who lives here goes to work, and they both greet me every single morning, walking down after this person leaves for work. The day he doesn't work, they don't come down until I call them.
Just because you can't tell the difference between having a good memory, and telling time, doesn't mean you have to dig down someone who's pointing out your mistake. Grow up. - FlyingSpaghetti, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2I can has 6 cuckooz?
- ohmahgawd, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5I don't know why you're being dug down. I have two cats and notice similar things. They can't tell time, they just have a good memory. For instance I wake up just after someone who lives here goes to work, and they both greet me every single morning, walking down after this person leaves for work. The day he doesn't work, they don't come down until I call them.
- Ceadda, on 04/07/2008, -2/+25Unfortunately, this doesnt mean in either case that the dog/cat can tell time. It just means that they have a memory clue as to the when is occuring. I say this because I have 2 cats. Both successfully wait at the door as trip hazards in the dark for me to return home from work at the same time every day. They also do this for my wife.
- brufleth, on 04/07/2008, -2/+23Well it sort of a different awareness isn't it?
My cat knows I get up at 5AM and will often wake me up a few minutes before that every morning. He has been trained to this and does it out of habit.
An animal showing signs of excitement at seeing someone after that person being away for 5 minutes vs 5 hours shows awareness of current state. The presence of a person vs the absence of a person. The presence of the person may be associated with good things (food, attention, cat nip, whatever) and it could be that animals are equally excited by the change from person not being there to person being there regardless of elapsed time in the "person not there" state.- duke1981, on 04/07/2008, -3/+20Just like on Tuesdays when I get excited right before work is over because Buffalo Wild Wings has their special?
- dustinhoffman, on 04/07/2008, -8/+1Dugg for making me giggle
- fadetoone, on 04/07/2008, -0/+13I bet switching to and from daylight saving time totally screws with your cat.
- wertach, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3It screws with mine. She is over it now and bites my toes at 5:30 AM DLST she let me sleep for a few days. I hate when we change back in the fall, she does it at 4:30 AM.
- duke1981, on 04/07/2008, -3/+20Just like on Tuesdays when I get excited right before work is over because Buffalo Wild Wings has their special?
- dissurmom, on 04/07/2008, -19/+3I wonder how all these people know what their pets are doing when they're not around... 30 Minutes before you get home your cat or dog waits for you? Uh huh, OK... Wierdooo
- wesd, on 04/07/2008, -1/+13The clue is in the reading of the comments:
"And my mom says she normally goes outside to wait for me 5 to 10 mins before I get home" - Lone1, on 04/07/2008, -1/+17There are people you might not be familiar with called "wives", you lure these creatures with shiny things they like to wear on their fingers. They are often at home when you are not, and they are able to observe and report back to you things that happen in your absence. Usually highly trusted, you don't want to disagree with them when they tell you something.
- kinseyincanada, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3so the shiny things are the key!
- Wartz, on 04/07/2008, -0/+13There are creatures called "moms" as well. They are generally fat but mostly kind. Many Diggers claim to have had sexual relations with the "moms" belonging to other Diggers while those other Diggers were away from their basements. A few have even banged some "Moms" while its Digger was on a WoW raid or even just arguing with someone Wrong on the Internet.
- wesd, on 04/07/2008, -1/+13The clue is in the reading of the comments:
- timusca, on 04/07/2008, -1/+10This may show that animals know what time it is (by observing daylight and whatnot), but that doesn't mean it knows how long you have been gone. My dog does the same thing - it waits by the door about 15 minutes before I get home every day. But I could walk out to the freaking mailbox and she's just as excited to see me.
Basically, your cat knows when to expect you home, but it has no idea how long you've been gone.- sexybobo, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2My dogs react differently to me when i get home after being at work vs going to dinner for 30 minutes. When i first get home from work they both come and pounce on me when i get home from dinner they come to see me but they don't jump up or whine like they do when i get home from work.
- yournamehere, on 04/07/2008, -2/+11my wife does the same thing
- AnarkeIncarnate, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3That's just because she smells the other girls at work on your clothes
- carloto, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2AAAWWWW
- bubba9999, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5My dog has a GPS tracker installed in my car somewhere so she knows when to get off the sofa before I walk in the door. You can't trust some breeds - they're sneaky.
- akzidenzgrotesk, on 04/08/2008, -0/+4oh but the definitely know if you've been gone LONGER than you're supposed to be. my cat greets me at the door when i come home every night and all that, but if i'm gone for more than a day, he'll pretend to ignore me when i first come in, then proceed to chatter at me until he feels better. i think they can tell long from short, even if they can't tell the difference between 5 minutes and an hour.
and maybe they get excited when you get back because they miss you no matter how long you've been gone. (most) animals get attached to their humans just as surely as their humans get attached to them. it's not exactly love in the sense we think of it, but it's something pretty close. - aethelberga, on 04/08/2008, -0/+2You should read Rupert Sheldrake's 7 Experiments that Could Change the World. This is one of the ones he proposes - testing to see if animals really do know in advance when their owners are coming home. Thought provoking book.
- explorer232, on 04/08/2008, -0/+1I'd tend to agree with Pizzler, both my Cats you can set your watch by! Every evening at 11pm (feeding time) they'll be back climbing the back door ready for supper. I doubt its awareness of time, but they did get confused for a few day when the clock change to UK BST.
- t0ny, on 04/07/2008, -2/+29Same here every night I come home from school 9 or 10 depending one the night my dog is sitting at the gate. And my mom says she normally goes outside to wait for me 5 to 10 mins before I get home.
- Wacer, on 04/07/2008, -5/+72My dog get way more excited when I am got for a long time and I come home than when I just go outside for a few minutes. I don't think they know what they are talking about.
- liquidpele, on 04/07/2008, -1/+14Not to mention rats != dogs
- ChzPlz, on 04/07/2008, -0/+9Yeah, I'll call ***** on this, at least wrt dogs.
My dog doesn't do this, but I've heard many people say that after being away for more than a few days, their dog will snub them for a while. - fadetoone, on 04/07/2008, -2/+3That, and if they were "stuck in time" they wouldn't be excited, since they would have just seen you. Time may pass slower for them, sure.
- WNW3, on 04/07/2008, -3/+7I'm with Wacer. My dog is always proportionately excited to see me the longer I've been away.
Also, DOGS ARE AWESOME!- DontGiveADamn, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2But after 5 minutes he forgot that you were ever gone.
- Miknarf, on 04/07/2008, -2/+6It could also be you transferring your excitement on to your dog, kind of like when you are watching a funny movie in a theater you usually assume that everyone else around also finds it funny. It could also be that your dog can sense you being more excited and is more exited by the fact that you are excited, if you just randomly ran up to a dog and acted like you were really glad to see them they would mirror that excitement.
- biffta, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1All the arguments to the story come from animals which have DOMESTICATED Go ask an eagle what time it is.
- staffell, on 04/07/2008, -0/+18Well my cat perpetually wants to eat, sleep and piss me off at 3am in the morning, so I agree with this sentiment.
- mentallyinhell, on 04/07/2008, -1/+10I don't think animals can comprehend time beyond their biological clocks(Day, Night, and seasons). I've read that apes that know sign language can't differentiate between yesterday, or any of the days before.
- halobender, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3Well it sorta makes sense it would be just things that happened before, not days in the past like we think of them.
- Grok22, on 04/07/2008, -0/+7I can't even tell how many days ago something happened.
- gi0rgi0s, on 04/07/2008, -6/+8This article raises some questions regarding the recently posted "Loyal Dog" article.
http://digg.com/pets_animals/Dog_Waits_for_Master_ ... - fragler, on 04/07/2008, -1/+19I disagree. When my dad comes home from an extended business trip, my dog is EXTREMELY happy to see him. He whines and stuff.
When he's away for an hour, my dog is indeed happy, but not as such. Another situation is when he's away for a week, he's excited, but not as much when he's away for months.- icyhaught, on 04/07/2008, -1/+7Maybe you dog just smells your father's other wife, kids, and dog on him when he is away for those months on a "business" trip.
- seastobble, on 04/07/2008, -3/+50this is ABSURD, of course animals have a sense of time. for example, everyday, around 4:45 my dog takes a nasty ***** right where he knows I will be walking on my daily travel from garage to house. I guess it's just his way of saying "welcome home"
- liquidpele, on 04/07/2008, -2/+5They only proved that it's the case for RATS. Saying rats and dogs have the same mental capacity is stupid though.
- pauleric, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Sounds like your dog's not only house-trained, but you know exactly when and where you'll need to scoop it up. You should be happy! If you don't want to deal with nasty steaming piles of goo, get a Chia Pet instead.
- Chazx, on 04/07/2008, -4/+3There have been lots of studies that have proved animals do have a sense of time.
- pauleric, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4I know that's true because I am an animal and I have no sense of time. I can only remember when something happened by associating it with some other thing that happened.
- snoop101, on 04/07/2008, -1/+4I dunno my puppy gets excited the same way if I only leave for 5 min, granted he gets excited over the pizza guy coming to the door.
- everett3, on 04/07/2008, -1/+10This article decides that rats are "all animals that aren't human" grouping practically every creature on earth together.
- Stupidumb, on 04/07/2008, -1/+6All creatures are vermin in the eyes of Morbo
- cblaines, on 04/07/2008, -0/+0Biology studies use what are known as "Model Organisms". A model organism is basically a representative for other organisms in the same evolutionary line. Biology is based on the concept of common descent. This evolutionary common ancestry allows us to make generalizations about large groups of organisms based on studies involving a small subset of the group. Some common model organisms are E.Coli, Yeast, Fruitflies, Mice/Rats and Zebra fish. The author is not making a "decision" about grouping.... Evolution is.
- lejake, on 04/07/2008, -1/+8Like everyone else, I disagree. When I visit my parents and their dog (where I lived a few years ago) every 3 months or so, the first time I walk into the house my dog goes berserk with excitement. But then every time after that during the same weekend, he acts normal because he already knows that I'm home for a few days.
- jcastillo81, on 04/07/2008, -3/+49My dog eats her own poo. We only had to feed her once.
- snoop101, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Holy crap. MY PUPPY TOO !!!
- wildcatkc, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1That's gross...my dog used to eat poo out of my babies diapers!!! Heelers love to eat and roll around in poopy!
- thtroyer, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Heelers are amazing dogs... but tend to have a strange fascination of poo that doesn't belong to them. :/
Then again, my dogs were pretty weird.
- thtroyer, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Heelers are amazing dogs... but tend to have a strange fascination of poo that doesn't belong to them. :/
- Scynet, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5Well now, looks like you finally found them elusive perpetual motion machines...
- KingGorilla, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- snoop101, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Holy crap. MY PUPPY TOO !!!
- duke1981, on 04/07/2008, -4/+3I thought dogs only thought about sausages?
- kraakmark, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2no, it's snausages lol.
- lovecss, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Walls!
- adml_shake, on 04/07/2008, -1/+31Why do I have this image of Seymore (Fry's dog in futurama) sitting out front of the pizza shop all those years floating around in my head?
- Hekate666, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2OMG I KNOW
- Durrok, on 04/07/2008, -0/+7Saddest episode ever :(
- ThatEvilGuy, on 04/07/2008, -3/+1They can tell time,
BTW here's a little tear jerker...
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=t4M7CD0Cc68- Kristijan12, on 04/07/2008, -1/+0Tear jerker it is!
Very depressive!
But I think there is hiden message in this!
- Kristijan12, on 04/07/2008, -1/+0Tear jerker it is!
- staeiou, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4It could just be dementia - a neurological disorder that some humans get as they age. My grandmother has it, and she can't tell the passing of time well at all. Sure, she knows what time it is now and has a sense of linear progression, but can't really remember the last time she saw someone.
- EazyE303, on 04/07/2008, -2/+8I think this sounds like solid research. Comparing a lab experiment to your pets is pretty worthless considering all the confounding variables.
Imgaine the implications if it were true... If animals cannot really comprehend time, the fourth dimension, what does that mean for us. Does that mean that there may be dimensions beyond the fourth that we simply cannot comprehend sufficiently to actually "see" them because we have not evolved enough yet?- kmccormi, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Yeah it's solid research, but I, for one, think that there's a major difference between a rat brain and a dog brain. My experience with my dog leads me to believe that dogs may have a faculty for understanding that rats may not.
- nekochan, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2or it would just prove that the concept of time was invented by us.
- johnjohnstonson, on 04/07/2008, -3/+3Yeah, my dog mingming does the same thing. It's a kind of perpetual self-sustaining cycle; he *****, he eats his *****, and he ***** the ***** he ate previously. He's saving me a fortune on food. I read somewhere that this is common puppy behaviour and that he will grow out of it. I hope not.
Edit...this was in reply to icastilo81. The comments are still a little ***** up I see.- Pixelante, on 04/07/2008, -3/+3"he *****, he eats his *****, and he ***** the ***** he ate previously"
He'll make a fine lawyer one day. - gwinerreniwg, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3this may indicate your dog is not getting enough nourishment from the food you're feeding, or possibly an anxiety issue. Puppies especially do this when they miss their moms. You might try a higher-quality pet feed (something high in protein and preferably organic) and see if this resolves the behavior. There are also additives you can put in your pet's food to make their feces less-appetizing, though I have no experience with these.
- Pixelante, on 04/07/2008, -3/+3"he *****, he eats his *****, and he ***** the ***** he ate previously"
- wildcatkc, on 04/07/2008, -0/+0I have to say that my dogs are as excited when i come out of the bathroom, as they are when I'm gone for awhile. But if I'm gone too long they do get super-excited...but usually its because their bladders are about to burst!
If they can tell time, why does my heeler wait by the door ALL DAY for his kids to get home...is it that he misses them or is it that he's not sure when they'll get home? - rowjimmy, on 04/07/2008, -1/+4this is strange, because i remember seeing some show where they wanted to figure out how birds knew exactly when to jump up and fly away when they were standing on a road and a car was bearing down at them - they found (by using a screen with a flashing dot that, when pecked, dropped a food pellet) that birds could measure precise intervals, down to the second - eg, they would flash the dot every 5 seconds for a bit and then stop, and if the bird pecked the screen exactly 5 seconds later (when the dot should have been there but wasn't) it would get food. they did this for a bunch of different time intervals and found the birds could differentiate between most of them. this would indicate that birds can "count" seconds (or at least remember and mimic given time-intervals) and if birds have got this down, I'd figure mammals would too. can't remember what program I saw this on, but maybe somebody else recalls it?
- bobbknight, on 04/07/2008, -12/+2bla bla bla bla bla mars is warmer too bla bla bla bla.
- jayhawk88, on 04/07/2008, -3/+7Just a heads up to everyone posting "Yeah but my dog/cat..." stories. The people running this study likely have PhD's in psychology, and have probably spent a majority of their adult lives studying animal behavior. In other words they have forgotten more about how a dog thinks then you will ever know.
- Lone1, on 04/07/2008, -1/+3Yea, cause if they have a PhD they simply must be right. Oh shucks, look I found a PhD that disagrees with this entire theory and exposes it for what it is.. yes, hogwash. Turns out its all a Creationist plot.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI
- Elliuotatar, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1Well if they're so infallible, why did they think they had a sense of time, and now think they don't?
Psychology isn't a real science. There's too many vairables. Okay they tested rats. How do they know this applies to dogs as well? They don't. They're making a stupid assumption.
- dumbpiney, on 04/07/2008, -2/+3Animals have a way of telling their own time. They can not tell human time as we know it. Time as we know it is made up by humans and therefor no animals can tell our time because there is no way to express our time to them. They do know when its dinner time, they know what time it is when owners come home. I am a hunter and I do notice that deers know when hunting season is around because you do not see them during the hunting season, but the second its over you see deers all over the place. So no animals can not say "I found food on Monday the 7th of April at 5:00pm", but they do know that they found food in a period of their own time.
- washburn085, on 04/07/2008, -3/+1To the commenter above, if people's everyday experiences show something different than the experiment results, then i think that more experiments need to be done before accepting these results. I know my dog would understand time. If I was out of the room for 5 min, she wouldn't care much. If I was gone for months, when I was away at college, she would get depressed at not eat for days, and when I got back, she would go ape *****.
Also, whats all this with peoples' dogs eating their own *****? My dog never did that, thank god. - Lone1, on 04/07/2008, -2/+4This seems like one of those desperate ideas put out there to try to convince people that animals and humans are so very different from one another rather than accept the horrible truth.
- HalfGiraffe, on 04/07/2008, -1/+5My dog can tell time but always confuses the big hand and the little hand.
- KingGorilla, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1I had the same problem
- bicyclethief, on 04/07/2008, -0/+6And they always fall for the fake throw. They must see other dimensions.
- Yoness, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1The people who make these generalizations don't really watch their dog's reactions close enough. If I'm gone for 5 minutes, they are slightly happy when I return. If I'm gone for 5 hours, they are excited. If I'm gone for 5 days, they totally freak when I return.
- phazon88, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1Thus is ridiculous ofcourse they can tell time. Buried as lame.
- SoundJudgment, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1My cat has a standard routine for greeting me each day after I get home from work: "Hi. Into the kitchen...NOW!"
- dearbho, on 04/07/2008, -2/+1are you kidding me? my dog used to get SOOO pissed if we left him for too long. Four hours was ok. anything more - and we'd come home to him fuming. He'd pee all over the house, tear up pillows, etc etc. Plus he reminded ME when it was time to eat every day - somewhere around 4pm. Dogs definitely have a sense of time... even better than some people...
- p51d007, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1Anyone besides me wonder how much tax money is/was wasted on this?
I think a better answer would be WHO GIVES A RATS ASS.- gwinerreniwg, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Maybe on the surface it seems like a waste, but as others have asked, what is time? why do humans perceive time the way we do, and are we unique? if animals do perceive time, does it change the way we treat them? These are all questions many people DO give a rats ass about learning the answers to.
- KingBunny, on 04/07/2008, -4/+3Maybe dogs are just.. you know.. dumb.
- SuminderJi, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1My dog is very aware of time and other things. When my mom is on holidays he has a completely different schedule of timing and when to get excited. He realizes when I go to work on weekends and on weekdays. He is MUCH happier to see me after the end of the say rather then if I go out for an hour or so - he misses me and unerstands time very well.
- DharmaDog, on 04/07/2008, -1/+2My dog knows when it's dinner time. She will come into my office at almost exactly 5PM every day and pester me until I feed her. I don't know how she knows, but she does.
- Elliuotatar, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Worthless article. Not enough information on how they performed this experiment, making it impossible to question the results.
- idreamwideyed, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1i dont think it's fair to compare rats to animals such as cats and dogs. cats and dogs may not know exactly how long you have been gone for (because i'm certain they dont know how to tell time), but they most certainly know their routines. as the current owner of two cats, a rat, a python and a cockatiel, Templeton (the rat) and Kaa (the python) are the only ones who seem oblivious to anything involving time.
The cats know when they are to be fed, they know when i come home from work, and if i leave for the weekend, they act as if they we're never going to see me again. the cockatiel will start screaming around 9pm if he hasnt been covered yet, because that's his bed time, and every day at 2 pm, he'll start screaming my brothers name, because he knows his daddy will be coming home from school in 15 minutes.
just because your pet cant tell time, doesn't mean that they dont have a sense of it.- rhino369, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I'm pretty sure my dog has a better sense of time than I do. She wakes up ever day at the same time. Takes a ***** at the same time. I wake up on the weekend wondering if it is 10am or 3 pm.
- yukevster, on 04/07/2008, -0/+4Or are we trapped in the illusion that there IS such a thing as time...??
- jerryn, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1Animals have some sense of time. My dog knows around what time I get home. My son told me when I was running late she was whining while pacing around the door. He thought she had to go outside so he took her. When they got back she started pacing around the door again. When I got home she greeted me and stopped the pacing and whining.
It seems like animals have a sense of time to me. - H0ns, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Submitted: 20 hr 19 min ago
- friarcrazy, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Dogs and other animals can learn cues about what time of day you may be coming home from work or school, but that does not mean they are keeping track of time. They may simply pick up on things like the usual position of the sun, ambient noise levels, and/or other factors that seem menial to us but that happen each day around the time you return, causing a conditioned response of excitement. The study does claim that animals have some feeling of "how long ago" an event occurred, which supports the fact that an animal may be more excited to see you after an extended period of absence, however they have no concept of set points in time.
- CosmicJustice, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Dogs can hear a car coming long before humans can. I think they use that as cue that someone may be coming home. They can also hear people out in the yard before you know that anyone is out there.
- veritasluxmea1, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2Wouldn't that mean that animals AREN'T stuck in time?
- shaka999, on 04/07/2008, -0/+3Never trust "dog people" when they talk about their dogs. They always seem to put anthropomorphic qualities to their dog. I have a dog and consider her part of the family, but she's a dog.
- KingGorilla, on 04/07/2008, -1/+1In my household we don't discriminate against species. We respect everyone which includes, humanoid, ethereal, multidimensional and others
- down4twenty, on 04/07/2008, -0/+2well if they dont have clocks, how would they know when something happened other than how much time has passed since then. If you put a human in a lab maze and test him/her for months, im sure the human wiill also lose track of time and couldnt place a time stamp on a certain event....
- Darthmalt, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I was delayed in an airport and got home on monday rather than sunday as I had planned. That threw my sense of time and what day things happend on for the rest of the week.
- j3ff86, on 04/07/2008, -0/+0All the animals need to do is find their constant.
- omgsideburns, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I left for about five days last week and the first night I'm back my dog chews up the strap on my backpack. The only other time he's ever chewed something up was a pair of shoes when he was like two months old!
He's a spiteful bastard. - illt, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1Marked as innacurate
There was a video posted here a few days ago about the effect of cocaine and marijuana on a rat's sense of time.
It was trained to press a button after 15 seconds have elapsed, and i'm sure you can peice together the rest under the unfluence - okcomputer1982, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I don't understand what this study actually proved.
It seems from the discription that the rats DID remember where the cheese was and that this memory did deminision over time. The explaination of the cues themselves don't seem to seficently prove there point.
The fact of that matter is without some outside objective measure, humans have a really hard to telling how long ago something happened too (a watched pot and all that) Time is just as much an artificial artifice for us as it is for anyone. Without looking into the minds of rats themselves (which is impossible) I really don't see how this study says anything about how memory really works in the rat, let along of all animals in general. - LoudMusic, on 04/07/2008, -2/+2I don't see anyone that has mentioned clocks or calendars yet. Humans invented these things hundreds of years ago. Before that I'm sure they didn't comprehend passage of time either. Has any scientist attempted to teach a dog what a day is?
Put a year calendar in the dogs area with Saturdays marked with an identifier. Cross off each day with the dog watching and take them to the dog park on Saturdays. I bet before two months is up the dog will understand the Sun has to set seven times before we go to the park again. And I would call that understanding the passage of time.
It's not that they can't comprehend it - it's that they have no way to measure it.
If you put a man in a box (prison) he looses track of time. A single day can feel like weeks. But as soon as you let him out of the box he feels like he's only been in there a couple hours.
"A watched pot never boils." ... unless you have a clock sitting next to it!
Give the animals a way to measure time, teach them to use it, and see if their attitudes change. - rxbudian, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1If they can't tell time and gets stuck in time, I why don't they get stuck in time when they're really sick and tired of seeing the owner all the time....or maybe that's where cats get stuck in time.
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