Ants Can Associate a Symbol with a Number of Elements Through Conditioning

Cammaerts, Marie-Claire; Cammaerts, Roger

doi:10.5539/ijb.v12n3p1

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…They thus presented an anticipatory behavior relative to numerosity. The obtained ants’ conditioning scores (during the first part of the experiments) were in agreement with those commonly observed in this species, which generally equaled ca 80%, e.g., in [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. In addition, the final scores of the experiment I (increasing sequence of numbers) were statistically equivalent to those of the experiment II (decreasing sequence of numbers).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Ants Can Anticipate the Following Quantity in an Arithmetic Sequence

Cammaerts¹,

Cammaerts

2021

Behavioral Sciences

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Workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti have been previously shown to be able to add and subtract numbers of elements and to expect the time and location of the next food delivery. We wanted to know if they could anticipate the following quantity of elements present near their food when the number of these elements increases or decreases over time according to an arithmetic sequence. Two experiments were therefore carried out, one with an increasing sequence, the other with a decreasing sequence. Each experiment consisted of two steps, one for the ants to learn the numbers of elements successively present near their food, the other to test their choice when they were simultaneously in the presence of the numbers from a previously learned sequence and the following quantity. The ants anticipated the following quantity in each presented numerical sequence. This forethinking of the next quantity applies to numerosity, thus, to concrete items. This anticipatory behavior may be explained by associative learning and by the ants’ ability to memorize events and to estimate the elapsing time.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Ants Can Anticipate the Following Quantity in an Arithmetic Sequence

Cammaerts¹,

Cammaerts

2021

Behavioral Sciences

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“…However, bees can also acquire numerical symbolism: they can associate shapes not evoking numerosities with a given number of elements (2 or 3 elements) (Howard, Avarguès-Weber, Garcia, Greentree, & Dyer, 2019c). As for the ant M. sabuleti, we have shown that they can acquire single (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020b) as well as multiple numerical symbolisms (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020c).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…In the course of our study on the ants' numerosity ability, we have shown among others that workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti Meinert, 1861 can add numbers of elements when they saw them together, at once, during training (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2019a), and can also associate a symbol with a number of elements, at least for the numbers 1 to 4 (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020b). We then wondered if these ants could add up using no longer numbers of elements presented side by side, but their corresponding symbols also presented side by side.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Ants Can Add Up Using Learned Numeric Symbols

Cammaerts¹,

Cammaerts²

2020

IJB

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The workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti have been shown to be able to add numbers of elements after having seen them simultaneously, side by side, during training, and to be able to acquire single as well as multiple symbolism. It was here examined if these ants could make additions using learned symbols. In fact, after having learned the required symbols during a first conditioning, the ants could, thanks to a second conditioning, carry out operations 1 + 1, 1 + 2, 2 + 2 and 3 + 1 by using the quantities of elements presented as well as their corresponding symbols. This ability results from the ants’ learning of the correspondence between symbols and numbers of elements by an operative conditioning, and from their ability to add up two quantities viewed simultaneously. A comparison of the ants’ score when adding elements and when adding their corresponding symbols suggests that the use of symbolism may represent some facility for the execution of simple arithmetic operations, as is the case in higher animal species.

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“…This is why we undertook a series of works on ants' numerical symbolism. We have previously shown that the workers of the ant M. sabuleti can learn, through conditioning, to associate a number of elements (1, 2, 3 or 4) to a corresponding symbol (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020c). During this study, the ants were trained to only one number and its corresponding symbol; they thus acquired single numerical symbolism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Ants Can Acquire Multiple Symbolisms

Cammaerts¹,

Cammaerts²

2020

IJB

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The workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti were previously shown to be able to associate a given amount to its corresponding symbol, one symbol at a time. It was here examined if they can simultaneously learn to associate the amount 1 with a corresponding symbol, the amount 2 with another symbol, the amount 3 with a third symbol, and the amount 4 with a fourth symbol, the cue to avoid being the amount 5. Thanks to operant conditioning during 156 hours and twelve successive testing experiments, it was shown that the ants can effectively memorize, in the course of a same time period, the association between the amounts 1, 2, 3, and 4 and their respective symbols. A distance effect was observed for the learning of the amounts 1 to 4 versus 5, but not for the learning of their four corresponding symbols.

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Ants Can Associate a Symbol with a Number of Elements Through Conditioning

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Ants Can Anticipate the Following Quantity in an Arithmetic Sequence

Ants Can Anticipate the Following Quantity in an Arithmetic Sequence

Ants Can Add Up Using Learned Numeric Symbols

Ants Can Acquire Multiple Symbolisms

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