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How smart are elephants?

Third Eye Open

Graduate Poster
Third Eye Open
Joined
Mar 13, 2008
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I just watched this video on youtube, which shows an elephant painting a so called 'self portrait' which is really a pretty simple drawing of an elephant holding a flower. Still I was pretty impressed

Does anyone here know much about elephants? Are they really this smart, or do you think it is more likely that this particular elephant has been trained to reproduce this specific picture only?

I knew elephants were smart as far as animals go, but are they this smart?
 
That is incredibly impressive. How can you assume what training occurred first, Lister? And even so, it is incredibly impressive. The elephant is clearly being extremely deliberate in it's actions.

Wow, just wow.
 
Hey, when in doubt, look for more information.

Elephant 'self-portrait' on show
They include "self-portraits" by Paya, who is said to be the only elephant to have mastered his own likeness.

Paya is one of six elephants whose keepers have taught them how to hold a paintbrush in their trunks. They drop the brush when they want a new colour.

Mrs Khunapramot, from Newington, said: "Many people cannot believe that an elephant is capable of producing any kind of artwork, never mind a self-portrait.

"But they are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or 10 minutes - the only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush, so it gets handed to them.

"They are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations."
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World: Asia-Pacific - Elephants brush up on new skills
The academy hand-picks the elephants for their artistic talent and encourages the former beasts of burden to express their inner selves on the canvas.
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So, trained, yes, whether they are aware it is a self picture, yet to be determined.
 
More...

Self portrait by an elephant is exhibited at Edinburgh
The elephants are taught to paint by a special trainer, who teaches them to hold a brush with their trunks and copy certain objects, including flowers, trees, and even the Thai flag.

The giant creatures, are taught to grab hold of the brush in their trunks and then pass it back to their keepers when they want to swap colours.

Experts believe that the elephants memorize the image which they can then 'paint by rote' over and over again.

It is not known if the elephants are aware they are painting themselves.
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Here is a third example, again by the same elephant.

Elephant Self Portraits Go On Display
“But they are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or ten minutes – the only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush so it gets handed to them. They pass the brush to their trainer when they want to use a new colour and they know when they are finished because they set their paintbrush down.

“They are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no-one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations.”

Only one of the elephant artists, named Paya, has mastered self-portraits but the few he paints are usually put on display at the conservation village.
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My thought was that the man who is in few instances visible to the left of the elephant is somehow guiding the elephant as to what to do, but I am not sure how.
 
...."Experts believe that the elephants memorize the image which they can then 'paint by rote' over and over again."....

That's what I kind of thought, its more of a positive reinforcement kind of thing than the elephant actually knowing what it is doing.
 
From the news articles it is pretty clear the paintings are done in public and it suggests the ooohs and wows of the observers are genuine. I think in order to guide the trunk, you'd have to hold it close to the brush.
 
Yes, 3rd eye, there is rote teaching involved according to the news reports. But this is the only elephant that can make these kind of paintings. That suggests there is more here than simply mindless repetitive movements.

I am not saying we can say the elephant knows, just that I am also not sure we can say it does not know.
 
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skeptigirl said:
Yes, 3rd eye, there is rote teaching involved according to the news reports. But this is the only elephant that can make these kind of paintings. That suggests there is more here than simply mindless repetitive movements.

I am not saying we can say the elephant knows, just that I am also not sure we can say it does not know.
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I am of the opinion that elephants are not mindless creatures.

But I think it would be much more interesting to see what the elephant would paint if just given a canvas and brush with no 'coaching' involved.

From the article snipits you posted (thanks!) it seems to me that this particular painting was one that had been practiced specifically to be performed in front of crowds.

I wonder what the elephant would paint if just left to it's own ideas...
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
They are smarter than creationists but not as smart as evolutionists. :eye-poppi
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That's because they can remember back farther than 6000 years (unless, of course, god implanted those earlier memories to fool them into sin).

Yes, the elephant's drawings are remarkable. I wonder what they fetch in London? Ah - OK, about $500. I hope she gets some top quality feed out of it.
 
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The rest of elephant paintings are devoid of images.

It would be interesting to study this one elephant and see what it would paint if given the choice.

BTW, this is one of my all time favorite YouTube videos up there with the Battle at Kruger, thanks.
 
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It is interesting that the elephant paints a red flower with green leaves, since they are red-green color blind (deuteranopes). But the trainer chooses which color brush to hand the elephant. I suspect that there is a lot more cuing from the trainer than we see on the viddie.
 
skeptigirl said:
Yes, 3rd eye, there is rote teaching involved according to the news reports. But this is the only elephant that can make these kind of paintings. That suggests there is more here than simply mindless repetitive movements.

I am not saying we can say the elephant knows, just that I am also not sure we can say it does not know.
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Been There. Done That.
This is the only elephant that can do THAT painting. The exhibition in Chiang Mai consists of a number of elephants doing various paintings. Each has been trained to do a particular painting. One does the Thai flag, one does a house, one does a tree.

You can find several YouTube videos of this same elephant doing other variations of the same "self-portrait" (which some idjit is claiming is evidence that the elephant is painting pictures of OTHER elephants).

It's training. Very impressive training. But training, nonetheless.


ETA: Sorry - the "BTDT" was not meant to be snarky. I meant it literally. I've seen this exhibition. (sounded like I was being a smartass when I re-read my post)
 
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I was under the impression one elephant painted all those things and none of the others painted any symbols, Foolme. I'll reread the links.

I see from the gallery of paintings for sale that the other elephants paint flowers and trees and that flag.

http://www.thai-fine-art.com/Elephant_Art.htm

Still, being trained to do something doesn't tell us what the elephants think of the images they have learned to make. Again, there is no evidence right now either way. Many things intelligent animals do have often been dismissed out of hand but the research shows that is an incorrect human-centric view of the animal kingdom. Only humans use tools, nope, only humans have morals, nope, only humans have language, nope... and so on. While one can argue that animal language is missing some syntax found in human language or animal tools have xyz limits and so on, the fact is humans have a tendency to forget our mental abilities evolved and they did not spring up out of the blue, all at once, with no precursor animal capabilities. Technology has taken off, yes, but our capacity to think did not originate with a couple nucleic acid substitutions in our DNA. Evolution is a slow process.
 
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skeptigirl said:
I was under the impression one elephant painted all those things and none of the others painted any symbols, Foolme. I'll reread the links.

I see from the gallery of paintings for sale that the other elephants paint flowers and trees and that flag.

http://www.thai-fine-art.com/Elephant_Art.htm

Still, being trained to do something doesn't tell us what the elephants think of the images they have learned to make. Again, there is no evidence right now either way. Many things intelligent animals do have often been dismissed out of hand but the research shows that is an incorrect human-centric view of the animal kingdom. Only humans use tools, nope, only humans have morals, nope, only humans have language, nope... and so on. While one can argue that animal language is missing some syntax found in human language or animal tools have xyz limits and so on, the fact is humans have a tendency to forget our mental abilities evolved and they did not spring up out of the blue, all at once, with no precursor animal capabilities. Technology has taken off, yes, but our capacity to think did not originate with a couple nucleic acid substitutions in our DNA. Evolution is a slow process.
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Oh, I absolutely agree with you on wanting to know what that elephant is thinking when it's painting. (I was just clarifying that particular question.)

"Ho hum, another day of doing this stick and color thing so I get some sugar cane."

Or

"If I get a little more depth in it I'm sure I can get it to look like my sister Nanu."

The park is one of the "good guys". In Thailand, mahouts cannot find work for their elephants in the rural areas any longer and they have taken to begging in Bangkok and the other cities, which is the only way to feed the poor animals, but that's no life for an elephant. Every time I see one, I give the mahout a few thousand baht.

These efforts to turn the elephants into "green tourism" may be their only hope. There's a program to re-release Thai elephants into the wild, and into a national preserve, but it's not far enough along, yet.

At any rate, the "park" where these artistically inclined elephants "create" is a commercial venture. The more reputable institutes also have painting elephants but they're not trained as heavily, and none of their works are quite so representative. (It was kind of a tacky cheap show. Next time I'm up in the area, I'm checking out the National Elephant Institute. You can adopt(sponsor) your own elephant. How cool is that?)

If you check the "art" on this link, everything's in the abstract. These pics come from elephants at the NEI in Thailand, where they don't train the animals to do particular paintings (but do train them as to how to hold a brush, etc...). http://www.elephantartgallery.com/
 
Foolmewunz said:
Been There. Done That.
This is the only elephant that can do THAT painting. The exhibition in Chiang Mai consists of a number of elephants doing various paintings. Each has been trained to do a particular painting. One does the Thai flag, one does a house, one does a tree.

You can find several YouTube videos of this same elephant doing other variations of the same "self-portrait" (which some idjit is claiming is evidence that the elephant is painting pictures of OTHER elephants).

It's training. Very impressive training. But training, nonetheless.


ETA: Sorry - the "BTDT" was not meant to be snarky. I meant it literally. I've seen this exhibition. (sounded like I was being a smartass when I re-read my post)
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I have seen a display of elephants painting in Thailand, and I wasn't very impressed. They are amazing animals, but it wasn't hard to tell that they weren't very happy with having to jump through the hoops as they had to. I felt sorry for them.
 
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