Inside the mind of an octopus, with Jennifer Mather, PhD

Speaking of Psychology

Kim Mills

Health & Fitness, Life Sciences, Science, Mental Health

4.3 • 781 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Octopuses haven’t shared a common ancestor with humans in at least 600 million years. But somehow, separately, these invertebrates evolved remarkable problem-solving abilities, curiosity and intelligence. Octopus researcher Jennifer Mather, PhD, talks about what we know about octopus behavior and cognition, how they evolved to be so smart, how the octopus brain is structured, and what can we learn about thinking and intelligence in general from studying how it evolved in a species so far removed from us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:28.3	help.com. It's no surprise that we homo sapiens tend to have a human-centric view of intelligence.
0:36.0	When we think of smart animals, we generally think of primates or
0:39.3	other animals close to us on the evolutionary tree. But octopuses shake up this view of the world.
0:46.2	They haven't shared a common ancestor with humans in at least 600 million years. But somehow,
0:52.4	these invertebrates evolved remarkable problem-solving abilities,
0:57.0	curiosity, and intelligence all their own. So what do we know about how octopuses think and how they
1:03.3	experience the world? How and why did they evolve to be so curious and smart? How are their brain
1:09.8	structured?
1:15.8	And what can we learn about thinking and intelligence in general from studying how octopuses behave?
1:18.9	Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association
1:24.4	that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.
1:28.8	I'm Kim Mills.
	...

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