Baby Chicks Have Innate Mathematical Skills

Hugh Pickens writes "Chicks can add and subtract small numbers shortly after hatching, says Rosa Rugani at the University of Trento. Rugani reared chicks with five plastic containers of the kind found inside Kinder chocolate eggs. This meant the chicks bonded with the capsules, much as they do with their mother, making them want to be near the containers as they grew up. In one test, the researchers moved the containers back and forth behind two screens while the chicks watched. When the chicks were released into the enclosure, they headed for the screen obscuring the most containers, suggesting they had been able to keep track of the number of capsules behind each by adding and subtracting them as they moved. 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 in problem solving of any kind."

Seems like a jump to conclusions.

[Beelzebud]

What's to say the chicks just aren't recognizing a simple pattern? Just because they could see that the larger group had moved from one side to the other doesn't mean they were counting, it just means they recognize the pattern, and went to the one they were familiar with.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[RyoShin]

This was my thought (except I doubt they used the actual chocolate containers). The smell of plastic is probably overwhelming in a lab, though, so more likely than not their own smell(s) were all over the containers due to spending so much time around them, and they just followed whichever smell was stronger.

The way to test for this would be to secretly replace the containers with 'placebo' ones that have no smell, and then see if the pattern repeats. That would control for the possibility of them sniffing their way over.

It's still an interesting conclusion (seeking out their own smell), but not one with the same implications if true.

Something similary about cockroaches long ago...

[Chris Burke]

Some years ago an experiment appeared on /. where they tested how roaches would hide in shelters. Roaches naturally like to hide in the biggest groups that they can. The researchers found that if they put 50 roaches into an enclosure, and put two shelters in the enclosure, one that could hold 50 and one that could hold 40, all the roaches would pile into the big enclosure. If they put two enclosures that could hold 40, the roaches would split into two groups of very close to half (like 26 and 24) in the two enclosures, with roaches actually moving from one to the other in order to balance it out.

Not counting, but it did demonstrate they had some notion of group size and size equivalence, and that they considered more than their own benefit (otherwise a roach would not have left an enclosure that could have held more roaches), possibly even communicating to do so.

It's weird how smart animals with tiny tiny brains can be.

False assumption?

[memorycardfull]

Associating a certain screen with more incidents of objects recently disappearing behind them doesn't necessarily indicate the ability to add or subtract. The idea that moving the objects back and forth is confusing to the chicks and thus requires math to sort out the answer might be a false assumption. If the chick is responding to the stimulus of objects disappearing behind a screen, and the effect of the stimulus is cumulative as more objects disappear behind the screen and the effect of this stimulus is strongest for the most recent stimuli and decreases over time I think that the result would be what is observed in the experiment. I think what is more interesting about this experiment is that the chicks have an innate sense of object permanence which is an ability human beings are not born with.

Re:False assumption?

[TinBromide]

True, if chickens flock, then there's a safety in numbers instinct going on as well. There may not be math, but an egg moving behind screen A means that screen A has more safety warm and fuzzies than screen B. As more eggs move behind either screen A or screen B, they might get more fuzzies associated with either screen. However, and this is the big assumption made, while we clearly differentiate between math and warm and fuzzies or a desire to go somewhere, the chickens may be processing with a flock mentality based on warm and fuzzies as the operators and object permanence as the variable storage.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[fuo]

It also doesn't way what order everything was done in... If there are 3 balls behind screen A and 2 balls behind Screen B and they moved the 3rd ball to screen A last, then maybe the chick just went to the LAST ball it saw move.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[DMUTPeregrine]

The problem is that most birds are already known to have very poor senses of smell. Chickens included. So it seems unlikely that they would be smelling plastic from behind the screens that accurately and that far away.

Re:My Dog Can Do Calculus

[Have Brain Will Rent]

My dog can do calculus too. Unfortunately he is afflicted with paranoia so he just lets it hit the floor and gives it good looking over before he decides to put it in his mouth. Then he catches it the second time. LOL.

My previous one was a wolf-hybrid and she could tell if it was something she wanted to put in her mouth while the object was in flight - even with something the size of half a pea and moving fast she would always make the correct choice, 100% percent of the time. That always amazed me. That and that she could do this and still catch the object even if the trajectory took it quite a distance from her original position. I think we grossly underestimate the processing power of these animals. My guess would be that in their own domain, a reasonably smart dog (hey some are dumb as bricks) is the equivalent of a 2-3 year old human.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't doubt for a second that most animals can count small numbers, although birdwatchers have been known to run in and out of hides to confuse birds about how many people are left inside.

There have been experiments of that sort with crows.

Apparently crows can keep track of the number of people inside till more than seven go in. After eight or more are inside, if seven leave they behave as if the blind is empty, suggesting very strongly that they can count to seven.

Re:Alternate hypothesis

[Hatta]

I wonder if they distinguish between a little more than 7 and a lot more than 7. If you sent 40 people into the blind, and had 7 come out, would they still think it's empty?