What is cognition?

But first we have to prove that why they are getting attracted or is it just arbitrarily movement of them towards dead drosophila… For that we need to do ori @jaikishan

1 Like

@bivasnag @Abhishek_Cube @GN @jaikishan @jtd @Rohan

We captured some moments of the larvae inside a culture media bottle…
Let’s take a look at it!!!

Another video

In this above video…some larvae are feeding on a dead fly that is there inside the media…

2 Likes

@Lydia how do you prove that larvae is really feeding on fruit flies from this?
Is there any indicator by which this can be shown?
Can we see that larvae has eaten some thing from its gut, as larvae is transparent?
Have you recorded any such thing in the bottles?

There are some pictures of the larvae where its abdomen has some red color particles…could be the bits and pieces of the dead fly…not sure!!!


4 Likes

Amazing, this is great finding.
How to confirm this observation?
How to design an experiment to fimd out whether larvae are feeding on flies?
@Lydia @bivasnag @harshita @Ruchi

1 Like

Where is the red particles in the stomach can you mark and show us and compare it with a normal fly which has a white abdomen so that it is easy for us to identify and differentiate @Lydia

2 Likes

How do you define the difference between getting aware and instinct.

Getting aware is the brain getting signal through inputs given by the senses of an organism. A dicision made due to awareness is made by processing (which is basically interpreting) the given information and then reaching a conclusion.

An instinct based dicision requires that the brain understands what happening in the environment to react to it on the basis of some predefined function which is same as being aware of the change.

So it’s always going to be aware. The only difference is whether the dicision is a predefined function or whether it is derived.

1 Like

Complex cognitive capacity of wild bonnet macaques :point_down:

What makes them to avoid " such morsels" ? How do they ‘learn’ to " avoid such morsels" unless they have evolved to do so?

When 20 Fruitfly larvae are kept in the center of a plain agar plate (with banana smell at one end and distilled water or no smell at another end) most larvae go to the side of the banana smell indicates the they *sensed" the smell of banana and decided to move towards that!

This can be confirmed when equal number get distributed on either side when no smell was provided ( only distilled water provided) on both end
Thus sending and decision making can be addressed through this design.

The moot point is: can we make the larvae change their decision through a " training/ conditioning" protocol?!

1 Like

Decision making becomes evident by observing which side of the closed plain agar plate the larva choose to ‘move’ to: towards the banana flavour gradient or against the gradient !

2 Likes

Design a simple Olfactory and Gustatory behavioral assay using dead fly/ larval extract!
Simple!

Right! That will test whether the larvae are attracted to dead ones through their smell/ Olfactory signal. In the current situation it may be because of smell and/or taste ( gustation)

All this could be just larvae feeding the medium attached to the dead fly or larvae…
Yes, you can design an experiment using plain agar and dead fly/ larvae as sensory ( Olfactory/ Gustatory) stimuli…

How do we know that they decided it or whether it was like a reflex or just a if else kind of mechanism in there body.

1 Like

Could be Sir…
But then later we saw a larva having a brown colour thing in its gut and intestinal region…
Couldnt post the picture of that larva at that time…
May be that while the larva was feeding on the media on the dead fly…it could have taken up the dead fly particles too…

Yes we could design an experiment like this…!!

4 Likes

@Lydia please explain how will you design this experiment to check if fruit fly eats dead fruit fly?

1 Like

I would like to use the word “sensing” a chemical and getting attracted to that? That is, instead of the complicated term “instinct”! @jaikishan @Abhishek_Cube

Why becoming aware of a known thing is not cognition? Is discovery same thing as cognition?

1 Like

@GN
If it’s a known thing which means we are already aware of it, we already have cognizance of it maybe it’s in our subconscious mind. It can simply be called recollection or remembering of known things. Awareness has to be dealing with things that are unknown. Cognition is a process of being conscious from a state of unconscious.

However cognition is not restricted to the conscious level, one can possess cognition even without being conscious about it, such as a child learning language by hearing and practicing it without any conscious awareness, its called unconscious cognition.

Discovery may be dealing with some finding which may be unique, its at the level of curiosity, however one may not even be aware of what that discovery actually is, to know what is that discovery and to be aware of deeper hidden understandings and implications of discovery has to deal with cognition.

There are different determinants and layers of reality, cognition is definitely deeper in understanding, connecting, finding relations and processes of the phenomenon, and being aware of all of these can imply cognition.

1 Like