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A comment on A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014). Parent comment

Re:A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014) by w0de0 on Sunday May 02, 2021 @11:11AM (#27015944)
If you’ll permit me, your identification sounds very much like a conscious exercise in reason: calling out and remembering unique physical features as mnemonic devices.

That’s different than the subconscious facial recognition our brains pull off for humans; I doubt you find yourself needing to look at the president’s ears to tell if it’s Bush or Reagan.

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Re:A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014) by KineticLensman on Sunday May 02, 2021 @11:56AM (#27016309)
> I doubt you find yourself needing to look at the president’s ears to tell if it’s Bush or Reagan

Indeed!

But I was really just listing the discriminators for the benefit of people who perhaps haven't looked at chimps very hard. For a few of the chimps, I can look and immediately say "that's Bart" or "that's Thelma".

This may of course be my mind having internalised a few distinct 'settings' of the discriminators. But the overall effect, coming back to my original point, is that apparently without conscious thought I can recognise specific individual non-humans. The Primate Care Staff, who work with these individuals 24/7, have very good at-a-glance recognition for the entire community.

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