INTERESTING CONSCIOUSNESS STORIES IN THE NEWS- DECEMBER 2022
Cephalopods Can Pass a Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children
https://www.sciencealert.com/cephalopods-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-human-children
Cuttlefish were shown to have the ability to pass the "marshmallow test." In this delayed gratification test, a child is seated in front of a marshmallow and told they can have one marshmallow/snack immediately, OR wait 15 minutes and have 2 marshmallows. (Full disclosure: If they used chocolate as the snack, I totally would have failed this test at any time before age 50.)
With cuttlefish, it was waiting for their preferred snack, shrimp, instead of crab meat.
(One of my favorite movies, Arrival, used cephalopods as the model for the advanced alien species that "arrived" in large craft over multiple countries.)
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https://www.insider.com/identical-intertwined-twins-been-cleared-of-cheating-in-an-exam-2022-12
Identical college twins were accused of cheating in an exam by signaling. They won $1.5 million in damages after a jury decided they hadn't cheated because their minds were connected.
Twin sisters Kayla & Kellie Bingham were formally accused of cheating at Medical University of South Carolina because the faculty thought "the similar scores they'd got in an important exam were more than just a coincidence."
Kellie told the council that their answers had been highly similar since first grade. She said they'd graded within a fraction of a point of one another at high school. Their SAT scores had been identical. They'd received the same score when they'd taken tests on different days and in different locations.
A professor at their college before law school wrote in their defense. He said in a letter that they'd submitted the exact same answers — some right, some wrong — for an exam that he'd supervised in 2012. They'd been sitting at opposite ends of the classroom, the professor wrote.
Professor Nancy Segal “who founded the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton, told the jury about the "very close intertwining" of twins. She said that cheating complaints against twins are "common" in academia.”
'Identical twins just have this kind of understanding that goes beyond what we typically think of as a close relationship.'
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