Numbers and counting

Flashcards about numerical competence in animals

What abilities are involved in numerical competence?

Relative numerosity discrimination, absolute number discrimination, ability to count, and ability to do arithmetic.

What is relative numerosity discrimination?

The ability to discriminate between sets of items based on the relative number of items they contain (e.g., many vs. few, more vs. less).

How did Emmerton, Lohmann & Niemann (1997) study relative numerosity discrimination in pigeons?

They trained pigeons to discriminate between "few" (1/2 items) and "many" (6/7 items).

What is the concept of absolute number?

Understanding that despite differing appearances, sets of items like 4 bananas and 4 elephants have something in common (their number).

What experiment did Matsuzawa (1985) conduct with the chimp Ai?

Ai had to select one of six response keys (labeled 1-6) when shown arrays of red pencils, with 1-6 pencils per array, achieving > 90% accuracy.

What is perceptual matching, and how does it relate to number discrimination?

Perceptual matching is learning about specific perceptual patterns; arrays of four objects have more in common with each other than arrays of 2 or 7. It's an alternative explanation to animals understanding quantity.

How did Matsuzawa argue against perceptual matching in Ai's number discrimination?

Ai could transfer her ability to arrays of different types of items.

What are some perceptual matching problems animals face during number discrimination?

Number is often confounded with factors such as time (for serially presented items) and space (for simultaneously presented items).

How did Meck and Church (1983) investigate whether rats were responding based on time or number of pulses?

They devised a test where both stimuli (2 or 8 pulses) lasted 4 seconds and found the rats responded correctly based on the amount of the pulses.

Describe the study by Davis & Bradford (1986) with rats and food pellets.

Rats had a designated number of pellets to eat; if they ate more, the experimenter shouted "No!" or clapped. They were rewarded for eating the correct responses.

What are the three principles of counting according to Gelman & Gallistel (1978)?

One-to-one principle, stable-order principle, and cardinal principle.

What does the stable-order principle imply in counting?

Numerons must always be assigned in the same order.

What does the cardinal principle state?

The final numeron assigned applies to the whole display.

What numerical abilities were tested in Biro & Matsuzawa’s (2000) study?

If chimps understand the correct number labels (numerons) and knowledge about the order of these labels.

What did Dacke & Srinivasan (2008) find about counting in bees?

Bees can count to 4 and transfer this ability to novel items.

What did Brannon & Terrace (2000) discover about chimps ordering items?

Chimps trained to order arrays of 1-4 items in ascending order could generalize immediately to a higher number that was taught an ascending order.

How can arithmetic be done by rote learning?

This can be done through the use of times tables.

How were Sheba the Chimp tested in the Boysen & Berntson, 1989 study?

A number of oranges were hidden in the lab, in any of three hiding places. Sheba had to find all the oranges, and then pick the arabic numeral that represented the sum of all the oranges that were hidden.

Describe the experiment by Boysen & Bertson (1995) involving chimps, gumdrops, and inequitable distribution.

Chimp A chose between two amounts of gumdrops or chocolate covered peanuts. Whichever Chimp A chose was given to Chimp B. Chimp A got the unchosen one, which meant Chimp A should choose the smaller quantity to get the larger quantity since it benefitted chimp B. This was substituted by numerals.