This law holds for numerosity discrimination as well: it is harder to discriminate quantities when they differ less (their ratio is closer to 1) relative to the case when they differ more (their ratio is further away from 1).
Using touchscreens, Plexiglas boxes holding raisins, and buckets hiding grapes, Brannon wants to establish that ringtail and mongoose lemurs possess a surprising ability to learn sequences of pictures and to discriminate quantities.
Brannon is using touch-screens, Plexiglas boxes holding raisins, and buckets hiding grapes to establish that ringtails such as Aristides and his mongoose lemur cousins possess a surprising ability to learn sequences of pictures and to discriminate quantities.
The scale quantities was divided into problems in which the ape had to discriminate quantities (relative numbers) or had to discriminate quantities with added quantities (addition numbers).
Experiment 4 was designed to determine if newborn and juvenile guppies retain the ability to discriminate quantities after being prevented from using non-numerical attributes of the stimulus.
A recent study investigating numerical cross-modal matching suggests that even two-day-old infants may be able to discriminate quantities but only with a 1∶3 ratio [35].
In the second experiment we trained fish to discriminate between 2 and 3 objects while we simultaneously controlled for non-numerical variables, in order to determine whether fish could discriminate quantities by using only numerical information as shown for mammals.
In contrast, the two species did not differ in the scales measuring their understanding of problems related to spatial comprehension, discriminating quantities, using and comprehending communicative signals and learning from others via a social demonstration.
Mosquitofish can learn to discriminate small quantities, even when non-numerical indicators of quantity are unavailable, hence providing the first evidence that fish, like primates, can use numbers.
Previous studies have shown that fish as well as mammals and birds can be trained to discriminate between quantities.
Many species, from honeybees to elephants, can discriminate between quantities of items, sounds, or smells, and represent numbers mentally.
