play

On another forum, we have been discussing the concept of "games", and more specifically-although-also-generally, "play".Some time ago I saw a documentary arguing that domestication of animals involved restarining them in an adolescent state; in this state, the inputs that would trigger fight/flight instead trigger happy/fun. With the onset of adulthood, usually, this shifts over to normal fight/flight.Thus, you tug a puppies tail, it thinks you are playing. You tug a feral dogs tail, it tries to bite your hand off.Now for the question. In thinking about this, I am wondering if there is any indication of play behaviour in non-mammals. I can't think of coming across any myself but I wonder if anyone else happens to know of any. Is play an evolved trait, amd is it a mammalian trait? Its easy to think of lots of mammals with play behaviour. But theres a lot of non-mammalian evolutionary history and I wonder (I know we can't determine) if play behaviour was likely among any of those. At least, by looking at the modern range, it should be possible to determine if play is strictly mammalian or not.Any thoughts?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I'm sad to see no one contributing to this topic as I think it's interesting and would like to know some facts about "play" as it relates to species.I hadn't thought about it before, but I've owned both reptiles and mammals as pets and I dont ever remember reptiles ever engaging in "play".What is interesting is that dolphins, an aquatic mammal, engages in play. So certainly it exists beyond simply land mammals.Perhaps it has to do with being a social mammal. Social mammals need to test out social "reflexes" and use play to do that?Anyhow, I hope someone has some actual knowledge on this subject.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well I don't personally have any experience in this area, but you're right it is a very interesting topic. I did a quick scout on google and found an interesting website. It makes it very clear that mammals are most definately not the only group to exhibit playful behaviour. It states that "play" is an evolutionary adaptation, and the best way to learn about playful behaviour in mammals is to trace it's path through evolution. It mentions a study of play in reptiles (sea turtle), and even mentions play behaviour in birds. It talks about a study by Bernd Heinrich and Rachel Smolker in which the playful behaviour of ravens is studied. It seems that ravens are perfectly ok with objects they played with when young, but have a strong fear of anything that they didn't play with. Unfortunately the website is advertising a book, so it doesn't have full in depth information, but it at least shows that studies of play in non-mammalian species have been done. Again I don't have any experience in this area, so I don't know how reliable the website is. Here are a few extracts explaining what I mentioned above though.

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Guess which animal is the subject of the opening (and thus critical) chapter in this book on play. The chimp? Dog? Cat? No. The turtle. That's right. Gordon M. Burghardt's logic for studying play in turtles goes as follows: If you want to truly understand play in mammals (including humans), you must begin by understanding the evolution of play. To do that, you must study play in creatures that are ancestral to mammals and work your way up. Hence, turtles. Burghardt's turtle studies shed light on the evolution of play as well as the current utility of playissues of great interest to those trying to better understand play in mammals. This work is a testament to the power of a comparative approach to understanding a behavior's function.

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Bernd Heinrich and Rachel Smolker's chapter on play in ravens is both extremely well written and informative. They demonstrate that juvenile ravens are very interested in playing with anything new. When they mature, adults are not scared of what they played with as youngsters but are afraid of almost everything else. Heinrich and Smolker show nicely that play in ravens may help in learning, manipulating the environment and signaling social status.

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The link to the website is | American ScientistThis message has been edited by happy_atheist, 09-04-2004 10:32 AM

Thanks for the link, I checked it out. Like the commentator I am a bit surprised that game theory has not been employed, but might put this book on my shopping list anyway; there does not seem to be a big body of work investigating this at present.I'm a little skeptical of turtles playing myself, will have to see what the argument is.

Is there a formal definition of what "play" actually is? Does it involve a lot of interpretation or is it self-evident when you see it? I'd definately say game-theory would be a prime canditate for examining it, it does pretty well at explaining most interactions.

Birds are a non-mammal group that play, although in thinking briefly about it I think it is only the parrots that do.Parrots are very social, and also very intelligent for birds, so that is more indication that intelligence and social activity are indicators of play proclivity.

The article that I linked above talks about a study on play behaviour in ravens.

My main contradiction to mammals onl was that marsupials would likely play. But I'm not sure how meaningful these divisions are these days anyway.But if birds do it then it can't be either a brain-size issue either, it must be something in the formation of the brain, I would think.