Octopus psychology

[William Tyson]

Does anyone know of any articles or publications about the psychology of octopus or any cephs for that matter.

Thanks

Will

 

[tonmo]

By "psychology"... can you be more specific? Much has been written / observed with regard to octopus "intelligence" (ability to open jars, etc.). Are you looking for information on the emotional aspects of a cephalopod's mental processes?

There is a thread with an interesting article referenced in it here.

And there is a great article by Colin titled, Do Octopuses Commit Suicide? which is worth reading.

 

[jc45]

If you mean cephalopod behavior or neurobiology, there are two great books called "Cephalopod Behaviour" and "The Brains and Lives of Cephalopods" disscussed here.

Joey

 

[William Tyson]

im talking both about behavior, thought process, and emotion (or as close as you can get)

 

[Tintenfisch]

Hi Will,

The subject of octopus 'emotion' has come up a couple of times before - here is one, although I think there was another that I can't find at the moment. I believe the general TONMO consensus was that 'emotion' is a very difficult thing to study/quantify because the octopus has such an alien intelligence to our own. Researchers tend to shy away from studies on octo behaviors that seem to resemble human ones, because there's no way to prove/disprove what appear to be parallels between them. There is a high risk of anthropomorphizing the octopus, and seeing what you want to see.
If anyone does know of any references, please post them. If not, this may be part of the reason why.

 

[William Tyson]

What im realy wanting to know is how and why and octopus "thinks" how and where it stores memory, if it has areas of its brain such as our lymbic system that control emotion and memory. do you know of any behavioristic studies on octopus?

 

[monty]

What im realy wanting to know is how and why and octopus "thinks" how and where it stores memory, if it has areas of its brain such as our lymbic system that control emotion and memory. do you know of any behavioristic studies on octopus?

http://www.manandmollusc.net/smart_suckers.html

There was some paper a few years back that classified octos into "personality types" that may be one of the references in that. And both the books that JC mentioned are good, too, particularly Hanlon & Messenger for this sort of thing. Wells' Octopus has a few chapters on behavior, but I think it's out of print, and not as up to date.

 

[jc45]

Now see, I think "Cephalopod Behaviour" anthropormorphizes cephs a lot. Such as body signals are described as if the octopus is saying something, like a cryptic body pattern isn't "The octopus is now blending in with the backgroud by blah blah blah" but the octopus is trying to say "I am not an octopus, but a random sample of the background." I've heard the other book I mentioned described as a "definitive guide to cephalopod neurobiology" so maybe you'd like that one.

Joey

 

[Armstrong]

Purchase "Cephalopod behavior" which I now own. If you have any questions on anything specific...I can type out parts of the book for you if you want.

 

[William Tyson]

thanks guys, ill start my aquisition of some of these diffrent materials, however i noticed that a few are quite expensive

 

[Jean]

Check out any papers by Jennifer A. Mather she does lots of work on octopus behaviour.

J