I actually have a new puppy—and it certainly has taken a little while for him to figure out that kibble is food so this part stood out to me :)
For example, dogs don’t learn to salivate whenever they see food. This reflex is ‘hard-wired’ into the dog
This doesn’t require that dog have a hardwired food classifier. The behaviour is the dog salivating when the dog sees something it recognizes as food, not that the dog is able to recognize all foods. It just needs one hardwired FOOD neuron, that can be attached to a classifier that is later trained. (Idk the technical terms sorry!)
It might still be bullshit—but you’d have to do some experiment that determined whether dogs knew immediately to salivate in the presence of things they know to be food, or if dogs have to learn to salivate in the presence of things they know to be food, which Zitovich’s experiment doesn’t address because he gave the dog stuff it didn’t realize was food.
Unless I’m just missing context, and Pavlov really did think the dog could recognize all types of food that exist from birth...
PS Also congratulations on finishing your PhD. I started one but didn’t finish, so much respect from me.
The behaviour is the dog salivating when the dog sees something it recognizes as food, not that the dog is able to recognize all foods. It just needs one hardwired FOOD neuron, that can be attached to a classifier that is later trained. (Idk the technical terms sorry!)
I actually have a new puppy—and it certainly has taken a little while for him to figure out that kibble is food so this part stood out to me :)
This doesn’t require that dog have a hardwired food classifier. The behaviour is the dog salivating when the dog sees something it recognizes as food, not that the dog is able to recognize all foods. It just needs one hardwired FOOD neuron, that can be attached to a classifier that is later trained. (Idk the technical terms sorry!)
It might still be bullshit—but you’d have to do some experiment that determined whether dogs knew immediately to salivate in the presence of things they know to be food, or if dogs have to learn to salivate in the presence of things they know to be food, which Zitovich’s experiment doesn’t address because he gave the dog stuff it didn’t realize was food.
Unless I’m just missing context, and Pavlov really did think the dog could recognize all types of food that exist from birth...
PS Also congratulations on finishing your PhD. I started one but didn’t finish, so much respect from me.
I think a mix of things are or aren’t plausible. I think the genome can’t just hardwire a FOOD neuron, because a food neuron is “about food” due to the way that the FOOD neuron interfaces with the rest of the dog’s mental machinery. I think the genome can probably hardwire an “about-to-salivate” predictor, with a known ground truth signal (did the dog actually salivate, or not?). I also think the genome can’t hardwire a circuit which fires if and only if the dog thinks it sees food.