Probabilistic numerical discrimination in mice

Berkay, Dilara; Çavdaroğlu, Bilgehan; Balcı, Fuat

doi:10.1007/s10071-015-0938-1

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…First, and most importantly, all but one of our subjects based their decision at least in part on counting—in support of the original intention of the task (Mechner, 1958a,b), as well as decades of previous work manipulating the task (Mechner and Guevrekian, 1962; Wilkie et al, 1979; Machado and Rodrigues, 2007; Fetterman and Killeen, 2010) and analyzing data from similar tasks (Berkay et al, 2016; Çavdaroğlu and Balcı, 2016). Most mice, regardless of count requirement and which time (trial or run) the count strategy was compared to, demonstrated a count-based contribution to the decision to switch levers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…Roberts et al (2000) then demonstrated that these attributes can be brought under stimulus control with a discriminatory cue presented prior. Recently, Berkay et al (2016) investigated animals’ strategies by modeling performance in a numerical switch task. This task, similar to the one employed by Fetterman and Killeen (2010), allowed the group to investigate the influence of when the animals’ chose to move from the “few” response lever to the “many” response lever.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for a Mixed Timing and Counting Strategy in Mice Performing a Mechner Counting Task

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Cotten

Malekan

et al. 2019

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Numerosity, or the ability to understand and distinguish between discrete quantities, was first formalized for study in animals by Mechner ( 1958a ). Rats had to press one lever (the counting lever) n times to arm food release from pressing a second lever (the reward lever). The only cue that n presses had been made to the counting lever was the animal’s representation of how many times it had pressed it. In the years that have passed since, many researchers have modified the task in meaningful ways to attempt to tease apart timing-based and count-based strategies. Strong evidence has amassed that the two are fundamentally different and separable skills but, to date, no study has effectively examined the differential contributions of the two strategies in Mechner’s original task. By examining performance mid-trial and correlating it with whole-trial performance, we were able to identify patterns of correlation consistent with counting and timing strategies. Due to the independent nature of these correlation patterns, this technique was uniquely able to provide evidence for strategies that combined both timing and counting components. The results show that most mice demonstrated this combined strategy. This provides direct evidence that mice can and do use numerosity to complete Mechner’s original task. A rational agent with fallible estimates of both counts made and time elapsed in making them should use both estimates when deciding when to switch to the second lever.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for a Mixed Timing and Counting Strategy in Mice Performing a Mechner Counting Task

Light

Cotten

Malekan

et al. 2019

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…For a long time it was believed that non-symbolic numerical comprehension could occur solely after intensive numerical training and if (and only if ) any other continuous extent could guide animal behaviour [26]. In recent decades, it has been demonstrated that purely numerical skills (when the possible use of continuous extents was prevented) are widespread within the animal kingdom [17,[67][68][69]. Nevertheless, studies proving early numerical abilities in non-human animals were sparse.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards numerical cognition's origin: insights from day-old domestic chicks

Rugani¹

2018

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Instead of the scepticism on animal numerical understanding that characterized the first half of the twentieth century, in recent decades, a large and increasing body of the literature has shown that adult animals can master a variety of non-symbolic (in the absence of symbols such as mathematical words) numerical tasks. Nonetheless, evidence proving early numerical abilities in non-human animals was sparse. In this paper, I report the ongoing work to investigate numerical cognition in the day-old domestic chick (). Unlike previous studies on adult animals, chicks can be tested very early in life, which gives us the opportunity to discover the origins of numerical comprehension. Here, I discuss studies revealing that day-old domestic chicks can: (i) discriminate between different numbers of objects; (ii) solve rudimentary arithmetic operations; and (iii) use ordinal information, identifying a target element (e.g. the fourth) in a series of identical elements, on the basis of its serial-numerical position. Some of these abilities are number-specific, while others underlie the interplay between number and continuous extents (continuous-quantity cues that covary with number, such as area and perimeter). These data are discussed in terms of ontogenetic development of mathematical comprehension.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The origins of numerical abilities'.

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“…Notably, animals can encode a number even when other, non-numerical cues are also available. This means that number processing is not employed as a last-resort strategy-for example, only when the non-numerical cues are unavailable (Berkay et al 2016;Kawai and Matsuzawa 2000;Biro and Matsuzawa 2001;Benson-Amram et al 2011;). In the natural environment, though, usually numerical cues co-vary with other continuous information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%