文章基本信息

标题：Application of an abstract concept across magnitude dimensions by fish
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作者：Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini ; Caroline H. Brennan
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2020
卷号：10
期号：1
页码：1-7
DOI：10.1038/s41598-020-74037-5
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：Mastering relational concepts and applying them to different contexts presupposes abstraction capacities and implies a high level of cognitive sophistication. One way to investigate extrapolative abilities is to assess cross-dimensional application of an abstract relational magnitude rule to new domains. Here we show that angelfish initially trained to choose either the shorter of two lines in a spatial task (line-length discrimination task) or the array with “fewer” items (numerical discrimination task) spontaneously transferred the learnt rule to novel stimuli belonging to the previously unseen dimension demonstrating knowledge of the abstract concept of “smaller”. Our finding challenges the idea that the ability to master abstract magnitude concepts across domains is unique to humans and suggests that the circuits involved in rule learning and magnitude processing might be evolutionary conserved.
其他摘要：Abstract Mastering relational concepts and applying them to different contexts presupposes abstraction capacities and implies a high level of cognitive sophistication. One way to investigate extrapolative abilities is to assess cross-dimensional application of an abstract relational magnitude rule to new domains. Here we show that angelfish initially trained to choose either the shorter of two lines in a spatial task (line-length discrimination task) or the array with “fewer” items (numerical discrimination task) spontaneously transferred the learnt rule to novel stimuli belonging to the previously unseen dimension demonstrating knowledge of the abstract concept of “smaller”. Our finding challenges the idea that the ability to master abstract magnitude concepts across domains is unique to humans and suggests that the circuits involved in rule learning and magnitude processing might be evolutionary conserved.