Estimating on the fly: The approximate number system in rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus)
| Autor: | Mia Corliss, Theo Brown, Maria C. Tello-Ramos, T. Andrew Hurly, Susan D. Healy |
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| Přispěvatelé: | University of St Andrews. School of Biology, University of St Andrews. Centre for Biological Diversity, University of St Andrews. Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews. Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Rufous hummingbird On the fly Cognitive Neuroscience QH301 Biology Foraging Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Flowers 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Article Birds Behavioral Neuroscience QH301 Numerosity Reward biology.animal Approximate number system Animals Learning 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences 050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology Selasphorus biology business.industry 05 social sciences Pattern recognition Numerosity adaptation effect DAS biology.organism_classification Hummingbird Artificial intelligence Cues business Psychology |
| Zdroj: | Learning & Behavior |
| ISSN: | 1543-4508 |
| Popis: | When presented with resources that differ in quantity, many animals use a numerosity system to discriminate between them. One taxonomically widespread system is the approximate number system. This is a numerosity system that allows the rapid evaluation of the number of objects in a group and which is regulated by Weber’s Law. Here we investigated whether wild, free-living rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) possess an approximate number system. The hummingbirds were presented with two experiments. In the first we investigated whether hummingbirds spontaneously chose an array containing more flowers than an alternate array. In the second we asked whether the hummingbirds could learn to use numerosity as a cue to which of two arrays contained the better reward. The birds did not spontaneously prefer an array containing more flowers. After minimal training, however, they learned to choose the more numerous array and could differentiate between arrays of five and seven flowers. These data support the presence of an approximate number system in the rufous hummingbird. It seems plausible that having such a system would enable much more efficient foraging in this species. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13420-020-00448-z. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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