Can an elephant paint?

It's not unbelievable. Recognizing the image in a line drawing takes a small amount of skill but no super mental power. It's just a way of by-passing part of the visual cortex and going straight to the edge detection. Drawing an image is obviously a bit tougher.

OTOH, Would a mouse recognize an animated line drawing of another mouse (assuming proper frame rate for their visual system)? I suspect it would but I cannot imagine a mouse actually drawing. They cannot even recognize themselves in the mirror.

I think the flower at the end is very telling indeed. That bit screams out to me that the image design was not by the elephant. I might have been persuaded that the elephant deliberately sought to represent an elephant, if it were not for the outsized flower, which looks like a highly anthropomorphic touch targeted at a tourist audience.

Even if it's trained behavior, and I pretty much believe it is, it's still absolutely amazing. I mean, just think about it.

And I'm also fascinated by my own gut reaction. From John's intro I knew pretty much what to expect and it's somehow clear from the second stroke on what's it going to be. But at exactly the same moment as the audience in the video, I experienced the same sudden jolt, or surge in awareness, or awe, or whatever.

If the brief coexistence with the Neanderthals turns out to be true, the last time one of "us" stood face-to-face with someone totally not us but equally self-aware was about 30,000 years ago, and even that seems to have been only a brief interlude.

The mere thought to meet someone who's so other that even Levinas's concept wouldn't even come close, and who displays the same level of self-awareness that we do, is thoroughly exhilarating.

^_^J.

p.s. John Vreeland no offense but I find you comment completely incomprehensible.

I have heard of these elephants before. They were on some kind of nature show awhile back. At that point their paintings were a lot more abstract - think Jackson Pollock. I tend to think that there is some training involved in getting more realistic paintings from them.

I have to agree with Duae here. I could accept, with some small convincing, that an elephant could draw a representational portrait of an elephant. But to paint something fantastic, in other words, to imagine something that has never been, and paint it, I believe is beyond the capability of even these very intelligent animals. That being the case, I have to believe this was a matter of rewarding the animal for performing the correct motor functions and that it has painted the same image many times over.

But ask yourselves this: could a human paint so well without being taught either?

John,

I think I might be with Duae and Size here, and that you slightly misinterpreted their point. Training is one thing, but training is another. I mean, have they been training this elephant to paint this exact picture, over and over again, to the point where it has simply memorized the sequence of moves? Can it draw variations that are approximately just as good -- say, with the trunk down instead of up, or with the tail down, or facing the other direction, etc. Or can it just do this one precise image.

Myself, I keep wondering if maybe this isn't so far off from the horse doing math -- maybe the trainer (who is out of the shot on the other side of the elephant) is giving hand gestures to direct the elephant, or has his hand on the elephant's shoulder and giving subtle directions. This could even be accidental on the part of the trainer, as with IIRC the horse case.

All of this is not, by the way, to discredit or even really question the intelligence of elephants or (some) animals, or the amazing performance here.

Time for an "I have a black friend even" story. This elephant can draw better than I can. Really. In high school, I once practiced for hours (yes, I was bored...) various tasks. I found that I could memorize up to about a hundred breeds of horse (I had flash cards), for example. But despite tens or even hundred of hours of repetition, my attempt at drawing the outline of a cow -- supposed to look much like the elephant's drawing -- was still more far-side stick-figure-ish pathetic than anything else.

This is nothing new. You know those cave paintings of mammoths in France. Those weren't painted by human hunters; they're self portraits.

Kevin, I knew the difference when I made the comment. I'm not promoting the elephant's capability, I was challenging the widespread assumption that humans are somehow better than that elephant. Only a very few humans can equal those skills, as you note. Even fewer can do it at will.

John, that's what they were saying on the Paleo list I got the link from. A belated hat tip.

...
What is the deal with the man carrying the easel behind the working one (at approx 7:10) then we see that easel has (apparently) a bunch of flowers on it, visible briefly at approx 7:20..??

Is the elephant simply mimicking on of those..?? Or has another elephant drawn those or..??

Interesting.

...tom...
.

My first thought is "how could this be done" and my second was "can it paint anything else?"

I suppose I should withhold judgement, but I don't yet believe that elephants can draw. More evidence please.

Sorry, I can't resist: After the obligatory web search, I found this.

I read that the trainer stands next to the elephant and gives it commands on what to do with the painting (something about tugging on its ear in different ways depending on the stroke needed). Not sure how accurate that is, but the elephant does pause a lot as if it's waiting for the next instruction. In any case, it's quite impressive training.

This sort of art is not limited to elephants.

have they been training this elephant to paint this exact picture, over and over again, to the point where it has simply memorized the sequence of moves?

Yes, that's exactly what they've done. I don not see this as much of a big deal. I think if you could find a rat or pigeon with enough patience, it could learn to do the same.

Carlie and Sven; Have you ever been to Chang Mai? A bit over twenty years ago I watched a similar display of the artistic ability of elephants (likely different elephants) while working in Thailand. I have no doubt that a great deal of training was involved but the trainers did not provide any overt cues to the animals while they were painting (Or the cues were so subtle as to constitute the first demonstrated case of human-elephant telepathy!). By the way, the same elephant did paint different pictures, objects of various kinds and creatures in various poses.

Either Sven DiMilo or Carlie have the correct explanation; there is no way an elephant can do that on its own - produce an original, meticulously controlled, representational image. This is a far more difficult feat than some apparently think; it's a matter of what to leave out while painting as it is what to put in. Humans can do it; nonhuman animals can't. What is depicted here is only impressive as an elaborate Skinnerian or 'Clever Hans'-type animal training trick.

The elephant has been trained to do this. I've no doubt that this 'trick' is very lucrative for the trainer. My worry is how the elphant was corrected during the long training.I suspect not with kind words. This is just exploiting elephants for the tourist trade.

I know how this trick works--the painting elephant is looking at an elephant holding a flower just out of camera view! It's merely painting what it sees.

It doesn't matter if the elephant was trained or not - surely it was to some extent. But just consider the coordination and un-aided long-term concentration that it took to produce that picture. If it's not faked somehow, it's still remarkable. The picture was of an elephant, and elephants are one of the few animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror (they have a proven concept of self).

That's true, jeff, and I have no intention of denigrating the intelligence of elephants, but there's no evidence (granted it would be difficult to obtain!) that the painting elephant has any idea that it has painted an elephant. It could just have easily been trained to paint (over and over again) a Volkswagen or a sea anemone.

To further Jeff's comment: do you smarty-pants "oh, it's been trained" people have any idea how much brain-power it takes to physically do what that elephant is doing, trained or not?

With a very few notable exceptions, a human would struggle to do what that elephant is doing with any organ other than our fingers, and we have more nervous tissue and brain real estate devoted to our fingers and hands than most other mammals have brain. Saying "it's been trained" denigrates the capicity to be trained to do that at all. If anyone would like to take up the argument that the "mental" capacity to do something is somehow different from having the neurological pathways, I think we could have a very interesting debate on our hands ;)

Come on guys -- it's an April fools' joke. Can't you all see that it is a guy wearing an elephant trunk suit on his arm and doing the painting? You only see the first couple of feet of the trunk doing the picture, don't you? First they show you the whole elephant and then from then on, you only see this arm-like thing holding a brush.

April Fool!

(Just kidding.)

there is no way an elephant can do that on its own - produce an original, meticulously controlled, representational image. This is a far more difficult feat than some apparently think; it's a matter of what to leave out while painting as it is what to put in. Humans can do it; nonhuman animals can't.

Actually, I'd like to see some evidence for all these assertions.

Atanu Dey: Actually, I was also bothered by the way the scene is shot to only show the end of the trunk, and had much the same suspicion.

This site argues that this is faked - that is, guided by human intervention, and gives examples of unfaked elephant art.

Yeah, humans can produce art without being trained. We have a creative ability that does not require any medium of communication from which we might learn a skill. We can clearly create new things. And so can dolphins:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1041454/dolphin_play_bubble_rings/

I thought this was much more interesting than the elephant, because the elephant is obviously trained in his creation, but the dolphin is clearly just being a creative badass.

We went to this elephant show when we were in Chiang Mai last winter. There's some input from the handler as they pick the brush and paint color. But the elephants do the work, and interestingly, some elephants are much better than others. One in particular, whose name I forget, did way better paintings than the others.

I was interested to read gyokusai's comment:

"The mere thought to meet someone who's so other that even Levinas's concept wouldn't even come close, and who displays the same level of self-awareness that we do, is thoroughly exhilarating."

One of several things that struck me about the drawing is: why would a mind so different from ours produce art that looks exactly like a human kid's drawing? I was waiting for a yellow circle with lines coming out to represent the sun.... For me, that really suggested training or "Clever Hans"-- though remember that Hans' trainer was unaware that he was giving the "counting horse" signals.

Tina Rhea sez:

One of several things that struck me about the drawing is: why would a mind so different from ours produce art that looks exactly like a human kid's drawing?

I don't know about you, Tina, but compared to this elephant's drawing, my own childhood attempts at art lacked, umh, perspective, to say the least. Curiously, I'd support your argument re training, but precisely because the drawing strikes me as too sophisticated on the one hand, and too suspiciously pleasing on the other. Too well-formed. Which would, as I see it, rule out the Clever-Hans-Effect even if it were a cognitive task comparable to arithmetic which it isn't---I don't think you can provide (in-)voluntary cues that would trigger a certain motif or motif development that would turn out as unmessy as this one.

^_^J.