It’s been a very rough month at work, so I haven’t had the time to commit all of my ideas down coherently yet, so please bear with me. I’ve jotted down notes on about a dozen experiments that deal with fluffies. I’m more interested in the psychology and behavioral ecology of fluffies in that regard.
BUT I do have two simple experimental ideas that I’ll share before my more involved ones.
Fluffy experiment 1: The metronome
I’m simply curious about mental resilience and ability to ignore negative stimuli. I imagined taking in a small group of fluffies, probably a mom and up to two foals. Maybe a father. I would set them up in a very nice and warm ‘safe room’ which was basically a converted closet. Blankets, stuffy friends, food and water. However, whenever I am not interacting with any of the family a loud and obnoxious Metronome on a higher shelf would constantly keep clacking away. What would be the results. Compare this to another group where I deny ever hearing the noise, or another group where I just tell them that is the sound of their safe room. I’m curious on this, abuse light really. After all, I have to put up with a co-worker constantly clicking her pen
Experiment 2: The Lie Detector
Can a human polygraph successfully read fluffy biometrics, and can it be successfully calibrated for a fluffy? Could this be a tool for conditioning behavior in a fluffy? Would lying need some sort of negative renforcement?
I’d be curious to see results of having a smarty hooked up and his herd watching as he had to admit things. Or the results of a family unit of mare, stallion and babies watching as a cheating mare had to reveal things.
I was tired when I came up with this, so my foggy brain kept coming back to having them always answer yes to spaghetti questions, to condition them against it, and test conditioning this way vs hasbio genetic disposition…
Someone had the sadistic Idea of hooking the lie detector up to a powerful blood pressure cuff so that in the instance of detecting a lie, the cuff would inflate and crush a foal. This could be added incentive to tell the truth, but the anxiety could cloud results.
I may have given too much time to these.
Please let me know what you think! I know I’m not a prolific or particularly great member when it comes to content, but I love sharing ideas and getting responses!
