PSGY2014: Numbers and counting

It is clear from Emmerton et al's (1997) experiment that pigeons' numerosity discrimination

• is limited to trained quantities

• is limited to untrained quantities

• expands to 2-digit untrained quantities

• expands to new quantities in between trained quantities

In the experiment by Meck and Church (1983), rats were trained to discriminate between 2 and 8 pulses of white noise. After training

• they could not discriminate between 3 and 7 pulses

• numerosity discriminations were based purely on the duration of pulses

• they could discriminate between 2 and 8 pulses even when the time elapsed for both were the same

If an animal can discriminate between few and many items on a display, it reflects that

• they have the ability to make relative numerosity judgements

• they have knowledge of absolute numbers

• they can count

• all of the remaining answers

Brannon and Terrace (2000) showed that Rhesus macaques

• understand ordinal relationships between single digit numbers

• understand ordinal relationships between two digit numbers

• follow the one-to-one principle of counting

• all of the remaining answers

Which of the following factors should not be controlled in an experiment measuring pigeon's ability to judge if the quantity of two sets of items are the same or different?

• Subtle gestures of the experimenter

• perceptual similarity between the two sets of items

• natural tendencies of the animal

• all of the remaining answers are incorrect

The ordinal principle of counting posits that

• the numeron assigned to the final item in a set denotes the total number in the set

• each item in a set must be assigned a numeron

• the interval between two successive numerons is always constant

Rhesus macaques in Brannon and Terrace's (2000) study

• could not arrange trained quantities in ascending order

• could not arrange untrained quantities in descending order

• could not arrange untrained higher quantities in ascending roder

Boysen and Bernston's (1989) study on a chimp demonstrates that

• arithmetic abilities are merely route learning

• they have an understanding of the interval scale for digits less than 5

• their counting abilities are limited to understanding the ordinal scale