Relative numerical middle in rhesus monkeys |
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Authors: | Rosa Rugani Michael L Platt Zhaoying Chen Elizabeth M Brannon |
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Institution: | 1. Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy ; 2. Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA ; 3. Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA ; 4. Marketing Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA |
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Abstract: | Animals show vast numerical competence in tasks that require both ordinal and cardinal numerical representations, but few studies have addressed whether animals can identify the numerical middle in a sequence. Two rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) learned to select the middle dot in a horizontal sequence of three dots on a touchscreen. When subsequently presented with longer sequences composed of 5, 7 or 9 items, monkeys transferred the middle rule. Accuracy decreased as the length of the sequence increased. In a second test, we presented monkeys with asymmetrical sequences composed of nine items, where the numerical and spatial middle were distinct and both monkeys selected the numerical middle over the spatial middle. Our results demonstrate that rhesus macaques can extract an abstract numerical rule to bisect a discrete set of items. |
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Keywords: | number bisection middle rhesus monkeys comparative cognition centre abstract concepts |
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