What Is It? Game 139

Two out of three ain't bad.

sooo cute and I don't even like cats

Two out of three ain't good either. One of the earliest trials of Zener cards to test for ESP showed a statistically significant result, with one subject scoring almost 100%. By chance anything is possible. If the probability of something is 1:100 then we should expect to see it one out of a hundred times. But instead we assume we should never see it. Never-the-less it is possible for someone to guess correctly on the Zener cards over several trials, enough to give the impression of genuine ESP.

Playing poker can help resolve those kinds of errors in judgement. You find yourself saying "what are the chances?" quite frequently. Thus, professional poker players assert that the only true method of winning is over time. If your chance of winning is greater than 50% you only have to have enough money to keep playing until it pays off. So, if you are going to play poker you play tables that have a buy-in value 1/10th or less than your total bankroll, and you play hands that have a 50% or greater chance to win. That way you shouldn't go broke before you start to see some winnings and over-all you should win more than you lose. But this is assuming you are capable of keeping your ego in check. You simply cannot expect to win because your hand has a 99% probability to win, you'll lose everything playing that way.

Ryan, the shell game has nothing to do with ESP. It's a game of attention and distraction, not guessing. And it's a CAT, fercryinoutloud.

@Miss Cellania

I was referring to 2/3 being an indication of some kind of empirical fact of the cat's intellectual or visual acuity. I'm skeptical the cat even has object permamence, let alone the ability to track the hidden object over multiple transitions.

Not that I'm claiming this is much more than luck, but if you watch closely the 2nd shuffle (the one where the cat loses), the shell the cat "chose" is actually the one that originally had the pebbleorwhateveritwas underneath it. At 0:14 the shuffler slyly moves it under another shell, right before starting the shuffle. Easily missed, even by the most sharp-eyed of cats.

I think the human was cheating.

Remember kitties - shell games are all a con.

Cool vid, but as a cat-owner I suspect the kitty here just plays with the shells and is not following any treasure.

I agree with Ryan S. It is very likely the cat just chose those shells by chance. Although cats do have a developed sense of object permanence:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1451424

I will remind you of the rule we have around here: no personal attacks on other commenters. I have removed a couple of comments. Let's keep this discussion on the subject and no more name calling.

The kitty did better than I would have!

I was referring to 2/3 being an indication of some kind of empirical fact of the cat's intellectual or visual acuity. I'm skeptical the cat even has object permamence, let alone the ability to track the hidden object over multiple transitions.

@Jesss

Thanks for the link. I thought about it some more last night too. I have two cats and figured they probably have object permanence based on my experiences with them.

@Miss Cellania

Sorry for being overly critical. My mind is in the books and found I was extraordinarily critical yesterday, though I'm finding I'm fairly critical most of the time. In Philosophy criticism and argument take a different non-hostile form, and I forget that doesn't apply colloquially. The video is cute, but I guess I'm much more interested in the cognition of the cat.