Here’s a video that shows, at leaat in some cases, that animals have the same expectations as we do about movement, and thus are susceptible to being fooled by magic tricks (not all of these are magic tricks, but all involve fooling creatures). Here are my favorites (note that I am a cat rather than a d&g person):
Pug: 0:27
Cat: 0:53
Parrot: 2:37
Raccoon: 2:57
D*g: 4:26
Cat: 5:57
Kitten: 7:53
I was JUST playing “Hide the chewy” from my doggie!
who is here –
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
Hand to hand, he’s jumping at each hand, then I hide it under my arm.
PANIC. He’s running about “WHERE’S THE CHEWY?”
Revealed, I bet it tasted even chewier than usual. 🙂
D.A.
NYC
In at least some of these, the animal is not being fooled, but rather is displaying “object permanence”– it realizes that the object continues to exist, even if it is not seen– and the ability to predict a trajectory. They are showing higher cognitive skills: as Jerry wrote, they have the same expectations as us.
A good way to demonstrate both of these with a cat is to play with the cat with a toy, and then move your arm as though you are throwing the object behind your back, but then not letting go. The cat will follow the object to one side of your body, then, when it disappears behind your body, the cat will turn and go to the other side of your body, expecting the object to reappear.
GCM
I just finished reading Cave of Bones by Lee Berger and John Hawkes, and it seems H naledi, with a brain the size of a chimp’s, had good control of fire, buried its dead, and made etchings in stone, all long before H sapiens did any of those things — 250,000 to 330,000 years ago.
Small brains are smarter than we thought.
Hawks