Baby Chicks Do Basic Arithmetic
Quote:
| "In a further experiment, once we had hidden the balls behind each screen, we transferred some of them from one to the other," Professor Regolin explained. The birds, she said, were able to "count" the balls that were moved to work out which screen hid the larger set at the end of the transfer. "They still chose correctly - adding up the numbers based on groups of objects they couldn't see at that moment." It is already known that many non-human primates and monkeys can count, and even domestic dogs have been found to be capable of simple additions. But this is the first time the ability has been seen in such young animals, and with no prior training. |
