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naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Notes -
My dog helped me understand the evolutionary purpose of negative emotions.
Isn’t quite getting the trick right? I can see the frustration in her face and hear it in her voice. Usually this precedes a great improvement in trick acquisition and retention. The frustration encourages goal-directed behavior.
If the trick still does not obtain the reward, the frustrating grrs and wrrfs become more sad and worried higher pitched eeee’s and yelps. Here is when she is deciding whether to give up on the quest and to play something else. I can see her flow state is reducing. She’s more distracted. This can be a sign for me to lower trick reward standards.
If she cannot obtain a reward from the trick or an alternative source, and there’s no fun to be had, she sulks and moans. This is the same emotion and sound when her tennis ball rolls under the couch and she can’t get it, and this also sometimes is preceded by annoyance.
What’s most amazing is how captivating and moving her sad emotional state is. It transcends species! I will be eating and if her low mood sounds are sad enough I am forced to get up and obtain the reward (tennis ball) for her. This contrasts with when is angrily and with great frustration and commitment is getting treats out of a large kong-cone toy. Her frustration and anger with her “games” is amusing and hilarious, her sadness is greatly moving!
In fact, I am pretty sure my dog has learned the power of her sorrowful, supplicating and entreating cries. She seems to have learned to do this whenever I am eating. If I am eating and not giving her attention she will push her tennis ball under a couch, cry, and look at me. She knows I will acquire the tennis ball and bounce it for her. She does this now twice a night, sometimes more.
And so sadness, the most curious emotion, is for the realization that the path to the goal is futile, and for requesting help from others. Frustration and anger are for continued energy and vigilance toward the goal. You can see that if you shape your dog to learn that yes, you will really get a treat if you figure it out and you usually figure it out, that it’s willing to bear much longer periods of frustration. And it can also learn that sorrow is the best avenue for reward acquisition. And the dog may also become frustrated and play with something else!
I wonder if there’s a study measuring each dog breed’s propensity to cry for help. It likely codes for domestication but I wonder if it’s also inversely correlated with aggression.
I doubt it, however there is a general list of trainability of dog breeds(which is domestication plus intelligence) and you can probably generate binary or trinary values for propensity to cry for help from breed standards which usually include specific temperament descriptions. You can also generally use size as a proxy for neoteny(smaller breeds= more neotenous most of the time), which seems like a relevant variable.
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