# Animals in Translation (book)



## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Has anyone read this book and if so what is your assessment of it?

Animals in Translation: Using the mysteries of Autism to decode animal behavior by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Bloomsbury, 2005)

It sounds like an interesting and worthwhile read. There is a rather lengthy overview of the book that I've inserted below in case anyone is interested.


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This magisterial book on animal behaviour is unique and, for me, is gripping reading. It is written by Temple Grandin, perhaps the best-known woman with autism on the planet, and co-authored by Catherine Johnson, a mother of two children with autism.

Grandin is famous because she lectures tirelessly on what it is like to have autism. She is unusual because she is a woman with autism (most people with autism are male). She was one of the first people with considerable professional qualifications (she is an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University) to go public about her diagnosis of autism. She also has an international reputation in the meat-packing industry, for her ground-breaking designs of humane cattle-handling equipment, techniques, and setting standards of good practice in handling animals.

In this fascinating book, Grandin attempts two ambitious projects. First, to explain animal behaviour. Linked to this, she aims to show how problems in animal behaviour can be easily remedied if you understand the causes of the behaviour. To this end, she has analysed animal behaviour down to its smallest details, so that she can predict what an animal will do. She has vast experience in being called in to trouble-shoot difficult behaviour in domestic and agricultural animals, from cattle to dogs to horses, and has synthesised the knowledge of animal breeders, animal trainers and zoologists into a wealth of practical advice on how to manage difficult animals.

Her second big focus is a new theory of autism. She argues that the autistic mind is closer to the animal mind than it is to the typical human mind when it comes to perception of detail. This last thesis will be most controversial, but it opens up a whole new way of understanding autism.

Some readers may wonder why a person with autism, who readily recognises she has difficulties understanding the social lives of people, can have such an intuitive and accurate understanding of other animals. Surely a person with autism would be more likely to choose an inanimate domain, such as mathematics, or music, or computers? Aren't animals and their social lives just as confusing as other humans to a person with autism?

We know there are autistic "savants" who can identify a prime number with lightning speed, or can perform calculations such as multiplying two six-digit numbers together faster than a hand-calculator, or can listen to a piece of music just once and then reproduce it, or can tell you on what day of the week any date will fall. In all of these instances, the individual has systemised an inanimate system. They have analysed how the calender works, as a system. Or they have analysed how music works, as a system. Or how numbers work, as a system.

When we systemise, we try to identify the rules that govern the system so that we can predict the system. And to identify the system's laws you have to analyse the system down to its smallest details, to spot regularities of the kind "If A, then B" or "If I do X, then Y occurs". Put formally, systemising involves piecing together "input-operation-output". According to the theory I advanced in The Essential Difference (Penguin/Basic Books), people with autism are hyper-systemisers.

Grandin has successfully systemised animal behaviour. She notes that the behaviourist psychologist BF Skinner tried to do this in the 1950s (and describes an interesting meeting between herself and the great man). In my opinion Grandin has done a better job than Skinner did. This is because Skinner did not spend all his waking life trying to imagine how animals see, how they feel and how they think. Indeed, he famously argued that one should not speculate about an animal's emotions, thoughts, perceptions and drives, and instead recommended an exclusive focus on the environmental factors that either reward the animal's behaviour (leading to it being repeated) or punish it (leading to it not being repeated).

Grandin, in contrast, starts from inside the animal's mind: what kinds of stimuli might make an animal frightened? What kinds of stimuli might make an animal angry? What do we know about the neuroscience of animal drives that might help us predict its behaviour? Grandin's incredibly patient, thorough, fine-grained analysis of animal behaviour results in her understanding it to the point of being able to predict it, fix it, control it and explain it. Her book almost stands as a manual for animal behaviour.

Here are some examples of laws that Grandin has uncovered: if an animal has to walk through a tunnel (to be vaccinated, for example) there are factors that will determine if it goes forward or refuses to enter. If there is a yellow object near the entrance, the animal won't enter. If that same object is painted grey, it will. If there is a moving object (a coat hung on a fence, flapping in the wind), the animal won't enter. If that same object is held still, it will enter. If the light contrast is too severe, going from light to dark, the animal won't enter. If indirect lighting is used, the animal will enter. If a moving light overhead is reflecting on the floor, the animal won't walk over that part of the floor. If there are unexpected noises (for example from the plumbing) near the entrance, the animal won't enter. If the noise is eliminated, the animal will enter.

She has also systemised the causes of aggression in domestic animals such as horses or dogs, down to a set of laws: for example, if a stallion is kept locked up and deprived of the opportunity to learn to socialise, it will not learn courtship rituals and will turn into an aggressive rapist. If a dog is not taught that it is the "beta" male in a household (with its owner being the "alpha" male), then it will behave like a dictator in a hierarchy and bite those whom it sees as its "inferiors". If a cat is reared indoors, it will treat a red dot from a laser pen as a mouse and chase it incessantly as you move the dot up the walls, over the floor and on to furniture.

Finally, she has systemised animal breeding. If you cross a fast-growing rooster with a fast-growing hen, you get fast-growing chickens. But she identifies that such single-characteristic genetic breeding programmes always come with a down-side. The fast-growing offspring also have weak hearts, for example. If you cross fast-growing chickens with those selected for their strength, you get long-living, fast-growing chickens - but they are monstrously aggressive.

The laws of animal behaviour that Grandin has uncovered are not just from her acute observation, but also from her knowledge of neuroscience. The yellow object panics the cows as they approach a tunnel because most mammals have dichromatic vision: they see just blue and green. This means that a yellow object is very clear to them - it has the highest contrast. Humans have trichromatic vision - we see blue, green and red - while birds see four basic colours (blue, green, red and ultraviolet).

She readily recognises that human behaviour is much harder to systemise than is animal behaviour, not least because animal emotions are few in number. She estimates there are four primal emotions in animals (rage, prey-chase, fear and curiosity) and four primary social emotions in animals (sexual attraction, separation distress, attachment and playfulness). In contrast, our recent count of discrete human emotions listed 412 (see www.jkp.com/mindreading). The non-autistic person effortlessly makes sense of other people's behaviour despite this complexity not by trying to systemise people, but by using a different approach (empathising).

What of Grandin's theory of autism: that people with autism are closer to animals than they are to humans? Such a theory could be taken as offensive (suggesting people with autism are somehow sub-human). In fact, Grandin's claim is that animals have superior perception of detail, and so do people with autism, and she backs up these claims with evidence. So, far from offending people with autism, she is if anything suggesting that non-autistic people have less sharp perception. We are, if you like, sub-autistic.

She links the two themes of her book by arguing that a person with autism will have a greater affinity for animals than will a person without autism, because the same sorts of unexpected flickering lights or sudden small movements or sounds that might startle an animal might also startle a person with autism. She goes further to argue that understanding animal perception might help us understand autistic perception.

If you are intrigued by animal behaviour, then this book will be a pleasurable read, as the intricacies of different species are laid bare. I was delighted to learn that elephants use infrasonic and possibly even seismic communication to send messages to their family members across distances as great as 25 miles. And I was distressed to read that male chimpanzees wage territorial wars in just the same way as humans do, resulting in many deaths. Or that the stereotypically friendly dolphin has been observed to engage in gang-rape of an isolated female.

Grandin is the modern day Doctor Dolittle who does not have any mystical telepathy with animals - she is simply an extremely experienced, sharp observer and careful scientist who has isolated the principles that govern animal behaviour. We owe her a huge debt for having used her autistic obsession (into animals) and her autistic perception (for accurate details) to teach us so much.

· Simon Baron-Cohen is director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University




Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jun/25/featuresreviews.guardianreview4
http://www.ourdailyread.com/2005/06/why-cows-hate-yellow/


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

"What of Grandin's theory of autism: that people with autism are closer to animals than they are to humans?"

One of my nieces Samantha is autistic with CP. My whole family is doggy and they all flock to Samantha any time shes around. They are all very calming to her and much calmer around her then when not. I did have a dog years ago that would avoid her. Never did figure that one out.

Haven't read the book but it should interesting. I've seen the Temple Grandin movie on tv a number of times. She's a VERY interesting person!


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Grandin, of course, wrote the ground-breaking_ Humane Livestock Handling_, and her humane slaughter facility designs have been adopted in many countries world-wide. 

She amazes me. She is one of my heroes. Her books are outstanding.


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

I liked it. It has been a couple of years since I read it, but have no problems recommending it as a worthwhile read.

Though it is not really about dog training, I enjoyed the topics of autism, general animal behaviour, and her experiences with stock animals. 

A lot of her ideas about dogs did resonate with me and some did not, but it was all interesting.


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## Katie Finlay (Jan 31, 2010)

Nicole, it's one of the best books I've ever read in my life. I think her understanding of animals is astounding. I would read Animals Make Us Human as well.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Katie Finlay said:


> Nicole, it's one of the best books I've ever read in my life. I think her understanding of animals is astounding. I would read Animals Make Us Human as well.



I agree. Even when I don't agree with something, the interest level never falls.


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

I've read it. She admits that she has had very little dog experience. What she is really known for and where her expertise lies is with livestock handling--particularly cattle. Once section that I found relevant to dogs that don't really generalize is the section regarding seeing within picture frames.

T


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## Katie Finlay (Jan 31, 2010)

Connie Sutherland said:


> I agree. Even when I don't agree with something, the interest level never falls.


Agreed. Definitely not a training book but I think she just has an understanding that more people need to have.


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## Lynn Cheffins (Jul 11, 2006)

very worthwhile read!


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## eric squires (Oct 16, 2008)

A worth while read. Any of her stuff is.


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## Dana McMahan (Apr 5, 2006)

Interesting read but overall I didn't like a lot of her ideas.


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

Just the other day I was looking at both Animals in Translation and Animals make us Human over on Amazon kindle store and was thinking of adding them to my "wish list". Now I will for sure!


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## Jennifer Marshall (Dec 13, 2007)

As others have said, a worthwhile read! I have this book, have not read it in a couple years but it was interesting and I will definitely read it again in the future


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Interesting. When I presented the question I honestly didn't expect much, if any response. I am glad I asked. Now it has me wondering what other good books/authors are out there that haven't been mentioned previously or even recently.

Much appreciated. Thanks guys.


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## Kat Hunsecker (Oct 23, 2009)

It is sitting on my shelf... I didn't make it past the first 15 pages- maybe....
so i really can't tell too much about the book, other than it wasn't interesting enough for me to keep reading.... who knows maybe it get's better later in the book?!?!

One newer book I really liked is :
Vilmos Csanyi : think in english it is called: "If dogs could talk..." 
That really is worth the read....


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

It has shelf worth for considering environmental fears although she admits she knows very little about dogs. I think some of the generalizations regarding how fearful animals see/hear/experience the environment are relevant to fearful dogs or environmentally reactive dogs. However her disparaging comments regarding purebred dogs and breeding are annoying. For instance, if you select against fear in breeding dogs, you will end up with dangerous animals. Her expertise lies with hoofed livestock and their management, particularly in the slaughter industry. The reader is left to figure out if any of that has any application to domestic dogs. As we breed/select for people and environment confident working dogs, it doesn't have a whole lot of relevance. I've had the book for years and and with the initial read, it didn't have any relevance to my dogs and the comments regarding purebred dogs and selective breeding demonstrative a huge lack of knowlege and experience and were down right annoying. Now that I'm training two dogs that I'm training [not mine] that are environmentally reactive, there are two sections that I've revisited regarding sound and visual reactivity.

T


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Right. I wasn't so much interested in her thoughts on the dog as I was in finding something worth looking at, perhaps something thought provoking, which might offer a different perspective on things that I may have previously seen differently. I posted the question here because I figured it would offer me the broadest views on the book or nothing at all. This group is pretty diverse so I thought it was worth offering up for discussion either way.

I tend to try and not only evaluate things in just one context or from one single perspective but in multiples. I find that I get a lot more mileage out of things that way.


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