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Message: <blockquote data-quote="justice law" data-source="post: 209902" data-attributes="member: 38397">hey guys this was an interesting post. There is not much research done on arachnid intelligence apart from jumping spiders etc. Although this post is seemingly asking for anecdotal experience feedback it could be made more scientific and meaningful by the following techniques. I have tried to keep it as simple as possible. if you have questions or want to know how to do the statistics please do not hesitate to reply here. it is important to understand that as a hobbyist you can significantly increase to and add to scientific understanding.1. always start with a hypothesis (what is the question you are investigating) and use the null hypothesis (as in this wont happen or will happen) as a way to prove or disprove your experiment.2. try to use a control  3. catalogue your results or observations in writing/video recording4. use these observations to make 'results'5. does this prove your hypothesis or not? if not why? if yes why?6. although this should be first you can do it after the fact, search the literature for uniquness or similar studies, how does it correlate to yours?7. write up your experiment and publish- here example the post about the pokie catching the cricket out of the air.the null hypothesis "a tarantula cannot be conditioned to catch prey out of the air"secondary null hypothesis"a tarantula (substitute your species name here) cannot be conditioned to preempt feeding time"the experiment1. we shall set up this experiment as follows2. the main subject shall be the pokie, the controls will be 5 other pokies of same species or other arboreal tarantulas we have of similar size and behaviour3. at each feeding time we intend to lightly 'tap' the vivarium front glass twice before feeding in order to condition the T's into a feeding response to the taps.4. this will be done for 4 weeks5. At the start of week 5 continuing the tapping, will begin to lightly throw the cricket in the general direction of the T6. at the start of week 5 each feeding of each T shall be recorded in writing or videoed and reactions detailed. 7. this procedure will be followed for a period of 3 months.8. at the end of 3 months we should have a significant amount data with enough 'power' to draw statistical conclusions and either prove the null hypothesis or reject it in favour of the alternative hypothesispossible statistical test to use;contingency tables, T tests, ANOVA or even simple percentages</blockquote>

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