Why cows hate yellow
This eminent book about animal behavior is exceptional and, in my opinion, engrossing to read. It is written by Temple Grandin, who is perhaps the most well-known autistic person alive, and co-authored by Catherine Johnson, a parent of two autistic children.
Grandin is well-known because she often gives talks on what it's like to have autism. Because she is a lady with autism, she is uncommon (most people with autism are male). She was one of the first persons with significant professional credentials to disclose her autism diagnosis (she is an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University). Her innovative innovations of humane cattle handling equipment, methods, and standards of good practice in animal handling have earned her a name around the globe in the meat-packing business.
In this intriguing book, Grandin takes on two challenging tasks. first, a description of animal behavior In connection with this, she hopes to demonstrate how issues with animal behavior may be quickly fixed if the underlying reasons are understood. She has done this by meticulously dissecting animal behavior in order to forecast what an animal would do. She offers a plethora of practical advise on how to deal with challenging animals and a great deal of experience being called in to troubleshoot challenging behavior in domestic and agricultural animals, from cattle to dogs to horses.
A novel autism hypothesis is her second main area of interest. She contends that when it comes to detail perception, the autistic mind is more similar to the animal mind than it is to the average human mind. The most contentious of the three theses, but one that offers a whole new perspective on autism, is the final one.
Some readers may be perplexed as to how someone with autism, who is aware of her difficulty comprehending human social interactions, can have such a natural and precise comprehension of other animals. Surely someone with autism would be more inclined to select a field that included inanimate objects, like math, music, or computers? A person with autism could find animals and their social life to be just as perplexing as those of ordinary people.
We are aware of autistic "savants" who can calculate quickly—for example, multiplying two six-digit numbers—or who can listen to a piece of music only once and then duplicate it. They can even predict the day of the week on which any given date will occur. In each of these situations, the person has organized an inanimate system. They have examined the system-level operation of the calendar. Or they have studied the mechanism through which music operates. or the systematized operation of numbers.
By systematizing, we attempt to determine the laws that govern the system so that we can forecast it. And in order to find the system's rules, you must analyze it thoroughly, looking for patterns like "If A, then B" or "If I do X, then Y happens." Formally speaking, systemizing entails putting "input-operation-output" together. People with autism are hyper-systemizers, according to the notion I put forward in The Essential Difference (Penguin/Basic Books).
Animal behavior has been effectively systematized by Grandin. She points out that BF Skinner, a behaviorist psychologist, attempted to achieve this in the 1950s (and describes an interesting meeting between herself and the great man). Grandin has, in my perspective, performed better than Skinner. This is so because Skinner did not spend the whole of his waking hours attempting to envision what animals see, feel, and think. He notably claimed that instead of speculating about an animal's feelings, ideas, perceptions, and motivations, one should only concentrate on the contextual circumstances that either reward or penalize the animal's behavior (leading to it not being repeated).
Grandin, in contrast, begins from the perspective of the animal, asking what types of stimuli may alarm an animal. What kind of stimuli may an animal get enraged by? What do we know about the neurobiology of animal motivations that could aid in behavior prediction? Grandin analyzes animal behavior with such extreme patience, thoroughness, and fine-grained comprehension that she is able to forecast, correct, control, and explain it. Her book is almost like a guide to animal behavior.
Here are a few laws that Grandin has discovered, to cite: There are variables that will decide whether an animal proceeds into a tunnel (to get a vaccination, for example) or balks at entering. The animal won't enter if there is a yellow item close to the opening. It will if the identical thing is painted gray. The animal won't enter if there is a moving item nearby (such as a coat fluttering in the wind on a fence). It will enter if the same item is kept motionless. The animal won't enter if the light contrast is too stark, traveling from bright to dark. The animal will go inside if there is indirect illumination. The animal won't cross that area of the floor if a moving light from above is shining on it. The animal won't enter if there are unexpected sounds at the entry, such those coming from the plumbing. The animal will enter if the noise is stopped.
She has also reduced the factors that lead to violence in domestic animals, such as dogs or horses, to a set of rules. For instance, if a stallion is confined in a pen and is denied the chance to socialize, he will not acquire courting customs and will develop the violent rape instinct. A dog will act like a dictator in a hierarchy and attack people it perceives as its "inferiors" if it is not educated that it is the "beta" male in the home (with its owner being the "alpha" male). An indoor-raised cat will mistake a red dot from a laser pen for a mouse and will pursue the dot nonstop as you move it up walls, across floors, and onto furniture.
She has finally automated animal breeding. Fast-growing chickens are produced by mating a fast-growing rooster with a fast-growing hen. She does note, however, that such single-characteristic genetic breeding programs are seldom without a drawback. For instance, the rapidly expanding children also have frail hearts. You can produce long-living, fast-growing chickens by breeding them with chickens chosen for their strength, but they are very violent.
Grandin has discovered the principles of animal behavior via both her keen observation and her understanding of neurology. The cows are startled by the yellow item as they go into a tunnel since most animals only have dichromatic vision, which only allows them to distinguish blue and green. This indicates that yellow objects are the clearest to them because of their strong contrast. Humans only perceive three primary colors—blue, green, and red—while birds see four (blue, green, red and ultraviolet).
She is quick to acknowledge that human behavior is considerably more difficult to systematize than animal behavior, in part because there are less animal emotions. According to her, animals exhibit four primitive emotions, including fury, prey-chasing, fear, and curiosity, as well as four main social emotions (sexual attraction, separation distress, attachment and playfulness). On the other hand, 412 distinct human emotions were enumerated in a recent census (see www.jkp.com/mindreading). Despite this complexity, the non-autistic individual readily makes sense of other people's behavior by utilizing a different strategy rather than attempting to systematize others (empathising).
What about Grandin's hypothesis that individuals with autism are more similar to animals than to people? A hypothesis like that can be considered objectionable (suggesting people with autism are somehow sub-human). Grandin really asserts that both animals and humans with autism have greater detail awareness, and she provides data to support her assertions. As a result, rather than insulting those who have autism, she is implying that non-autistic individuals have less keen sense. We may be said to be sub-autistic.
She makes the case that a person with autism will have a stronger bond with animals than a person without autism because the same unexpected flickering lights, sudden small movements, or loud noises that might startle an animal could also startle a person with autism, connecting the two themes of her book. She goes on to say that knowing how animals see things can help us understand how autistic people perceive things.
This book will be enjoyable to read if you are fascinated by animal behavior since it reveals the subtleties of many species. I was thrilled to read that elephants communicate with their family members at distances of up to 25 kilometers using infrasonic and potentially even seismic signals. And I was horrified to learn that male chimpanzees fight for territory in exactly the same manner as humans do, which often results in many fatalities. Or that a gang-rape of a female victim by a dolphin that is supposed to be friendly has been seen.
Grandin is the modern-day equivalent of Doctor Dolittle; however, she does not possess any supernatural powers of animal communication; rather, she is a highly skilled, perceptive observer, and meticulous scientist who has extracted the principles underlying animal behavior. She has taught us so much by using both her autism fixation (with animals) and her autistic perception (for correct details).
