
Many Animals Can Count - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/animals-count-numbers.html?action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
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b5
It's not scientific, and based purely on my own observation, but I'm
reasonably sure that one of my cats can count to a limited degree.

He's a rescue on a special diet for his weight, as we have a small scoop to
measure out his portion. Both he and the other cat get two scoops each. I
normally put one in his bowl -- which he starts eating immediately -- then two
in the other cat's bowl, then his second in his bowl. He stops eating and
watches each scoop being poured into the bowl.

He seems to be able to keep track/count of how many scoops each bowl gets,
even if I vary the order they're delivered in. He'll switch to the other bowl
if it gets an additional scoop, even if it gets one full scoop and two half
scoops. He seems good at 'counting' the number of scoops, but poor at judging
the quantity of kibble in the bowl -- he'll unfailingly pick the bowl with
more scoops even if it has the same or slightly lower quantity of food in it.
He only notices a quantity difference if it's reasonably large.

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00117
How do you know the cat isn't merely opting for the bowl that most-recently
had food put in? Can you please test this and get back to us?

~~~
ctchocula
One way to test this would be to use a scoop that's 2x bigger than the other
scoop, and putting in 3 scoops using the smaller scoop vs. 2 scoops of the
bigger scoop.

~~~
b5
Tried that by using three half-ish full scoops against two full scoops. He
always goes to the bowl which has had the highest number of scoops in it, even
though it might actually have a lower quantity of food in it. He seems to be
counting rather than comparing quantity, because his trigger is the other bowl
getting +1 scoop versus his.

~~~
00117
Can we measure when he loses count by using many small scoops? I expect if his
current bowl has passed a certain threshold of scoops he won't bother
switching no matter how many scoops are going there.

~~~
sattoshi
Bowls aren't that large y'know

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tialaramex
The article implies but carefully doesn't state that all humans count. In fact
at least one unintegrated tribe doesn't really count although like these
animals they can tell that eight of something is more than three of the same
thing. Adults from the tribe show no interest in learning how‡, even though
from our perspective it seems obvious that since they trade goods with
outsiders they could benefit from acquiring this skill. There is a lesson
there.

‡ A child from that tribe is just another human child, if it was somehow
transplanted to New Jersey at age six months it would learn to speak "English"
with a New Jersey accent, and yes, of course, it would learn to count.

~~~
yorwba
You're probably referring to the Pirahã.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Numerals_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Numerals_and_grammatical_number)

~~~
kiliantics
I remember reading somewhere that Everett's claims about the Piraha (and the
implications for Chomsky's theory of universal grammar - apparently Piraha
language has no subordinate clause, which is supposedly a necessary component)
were eventually debunked. He had apparently not learned the language well
enough at the time. Can't seem to find any source for this now but it is
alluded to later in that wiki article.

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dahart
Back in college, walking across campus one day, I was listening to the birds
chirping. I suddenly noticed that the one of the birds was counting, and I was
stunned. The chirps were in groups from 1 to maybe 9, consecutive, with 2-3
seconds between each group, and then repeat. I have no doubt it understood the
concept of a number & counting on some level. Maybe it was because the birds
were near the engineering building...

~~~
ilamont
Chickadees lengthen the number of "dees" in their calls depending on the
perceived threat of nearby predators based on size/speed:

 _Templeton and his colleagues tested the alarm call responses of a flock of
six chickadees against the presence of 13 birds of prey predators, which
ranged in size from the 40-centimetre wingspan pygmy owl to the 140-centimetre
wingspan rough-tail hawk. They also tested responses against two mammals, a
cat and a weasel. Each predator was inserted into the chickadees aviary and
tethered to a perch.

After analysing 5000 recorded alarm calls, the team found that the number of
“dees” in the bird’s trademark “chickadee-dee-dee-dee” call corresponded to
the size of the poised predator. Smaller hunters – which pose the greatest
risk – received the most vociferous response. The alert causes the flock to
mob their sitting foe in an attempt to drive it away._

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7570-chirpy-
chickadee...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7570-chirpy-chickadees-
signal-deadliness-of-predators/)

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efsavage
My dog has a anti-barking collar that will beep on one bark, then do a small
zap on subsequent barks. After 30 seconds, it resets. She quickly learned
(half border collie) that she can bark once with no ill effects. She then
learned that after a while she can bark again. It is uncanny how she often
gets close to 30 seconds, and almost never goes under. The times I have timed
it she's been 35-45 seconds, which is a lot more precise than I would have
expected. She seems to be more accurate when she paces during the interval, so
I've always wondered if she's "counting" her steps.

~~~
yesenadam
You give your dog electric shocks??

~~~
cm2012
These things are usually quite mild, especially for a dog with thick fur, and
they only have to get shocked a few times before they learn. A bark collar is
a great alternative to noisy dogs staying in shelters their whole lives.

~~~
yesenadam
So maybe use them on people then? Sounds like a great alternative to a life of
prison. But seriously, why wouldn't you, if you think it's good doing it to
dogs?

edit: (can't reply yet) I was going to ask if you'd do it to your children. I
guess you're joking. Maybe people do that, I've no idea, I hadn't heard of
giving pets electric shocks. But I don't see a huge difference between doing
that to dogs and to people, maybe you do.

~~~
markdown
> I was going to ask if you'd do it to your children.

Disciplining children when they do something undesirable has been done since
we were swinging around in trees and probably before then. The punishment
method has varied from belts, to paddles, to canes, to time-outs. The pinch of
an electric shock would work but isn't necessary since we can communicate with
children.

BTW, did you know that electric shock has been used on bed-wetting kids since
the 60's?

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yesenadam
No I didn't! Does it work? Now I'm ashamed I immediately asked that. "Would
you want it used on you?" sounds like a better question, applying to the taser
and dog examples also. I'd answer no, maybe others would say yes.

~~~
Dylan16807
If I'm absolutely refusing to be reasoned with, only respond to immediate
feedback and testing the limits over and over?

Yeah, go ahead and put the non-harmful zapper on me.

(Taser is in a different class entirely, not very relevant.)

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everdev
More surprisingly so can some plants:
[https://nytimes.com/2016/02/02/science/the-venus-flytrap-
a-p...](https://nytimes.com/2016/02/02/science/the-venus-flytrap-a-plant-that-
can-count.html)

The plants basically use electrical charges to stimulate their cell and after
X simulations an action is taken (like closing a trap).

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jdmichal
The linguistic components are a bit overblown, at least as far as extending
into the past. Just English to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, dropping any PG
endings, and glossing over things like long vowels:

 _one_ : /wʌn/ vs /ɑi̯n/

 _two_ : /tu/ vs /twɑi̯/

 _three_ : /θri/ vs /θri/

 _four_ : /fɔr/ vs /ɸeð.wɔr/

 _five_ : /faiv/ vs /ɸimɸ/

This is only to early AD times. Pushing back into Proto-Indo-European gets
weirder; you lose Grimm's law. Considering I've had trouble asking for a "map"
in a Spanish train station (/mæp/ vs /mapa/), I don't see these being anywhere
close to understood.

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the-dude
We had a cat that could count. She would show at the dining table during
desert because she knew she was allowed to "clean" the desert plates. As soon
as somebody finished, she got the plate ( or bowl ).

This cat retreated to her lair after she got all plates, whether there 2, 3 or
4 persons at the table.

Other cats in the household developed the same pattern ( showing up, cleaning
plates ). But these cats had to signaled explicitly there was none left,
otherwise they would stay around and keep asking.

~~~
jws
I've got a counting dog. For much of her life there were 4 people living in
the house. Intermittently through the day she would walk around the house
until she counted 4 people, then settle down. It didn't really matter which 4
people it was, just that there were 4, if there were more people in the house
she'd stop at 4. As children moved away she'd have bad periods where she
couldn't make quota and would keep searching. Eventually she'd update the
target house population and only count to 3 or now 2.

~~~
cavanasm
My sister's dog is the same way with counting people in the house. She's a
rescue, so we aren't sure exactly what her lineage is, but she has a color
pattern somewhat reminiscent of a border collie, and she tries to herd people.

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VyseofArcadia
> like the ability to judge whether a sentence like this is true: “There is no
> non-vanishing continuous tangent vector field on even dimensional spheres.”

That's the statement of the Hairy ball theorem, by the way.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem)

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lanius
I'm reminded of that scene in Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman's character
instantly counts exactly how many toothpicks a waitress drops. No idea how
realistic that was, but perhaps some humans are able to use those circuits
dedicated toward counting that have long gone dormant in our species.

~~~
bckygldstn
I blanking on keywords/sources right now, but I remember learning about this
in college.

The gist was that we have have on O(1) counting system for small numbers and
an O(n) system for larger numbers. It takes the same amount of time to count 3
apples as 5 apples cause you can just instantly perceive that magnitude. But
it takes about twice as long to count 40 widgits than 20, cause you have to
look at each one individually.

It seams reasonably that the threshold for the two systems would vary in
different individuals.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Keyword: Subitizing -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing)

In Rain Man, Raymond sees three groups of 82 toothpicks instantly. The
waitress recognizes instantly that there are 4 toothpicks remaining - that's a
much easier number to see instantly.

I believe that the ordinary maximum that people subitize is 4. I can believe
that the threshold may vary between a normal 3-5 up to something as high as
10. And when playing fast-paced card games with friends, I think that my range
is much lower and theirs may be much higher! But 82 is just unbelievable.

~~~
pluma
He's portrayed as an autistic savant, so I don't find it entirely implausible.
There are documented cases of autists showing extremely impressive
performances in arithemetic and memorisation, so why not subitizing too?

~~~
dorfsmay
"Laurence Kim Peek (November 11, 1951 – December 19, 2009) was an American
savant. Known as a "megasavant", he had an exceptional memory, but he also
experienced social difficulties, possibly resulting from a developmental
disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration
for the autistic savant character Raymond Babbitt in the movie Rain Man."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek)

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herodotus
When I was young I heard someone claiming that Baboons could count to 3. The
proof was that corn farmers learned to scare off raiding Baboons by hiding in
the field (with a rifle). However, if a farmer was seen to go into the field,
the Baboons waited until he or she came out before raiding. The solution was
to send four farmers in, and three out. This apparently fooled the Baboons. At
least until a Baboon named Isaac Babewton came along....

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nesyt
Dumb joke notwithstanding, the fourth farmer remains in the field? How's that
'fooling the baboons'? Or is the whole comment supposed to be nonsense?

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herodotus
No, it is supposedly the technique that was used by farmers in the Transvaal
to discourage baboon packs from raiding their corn fields. The baboons
apparently could not distinguish between groups of 3 and 4 people, so they did
not realize that someone was waiting to ambush them in the field. Sorry for
the bad joke. I should have left that out.

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red75prime
Humans have this ability too. It's called subitizing.

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danielam
I'm glad you introduced this term vis-a-vis counting. I would distinguish
between the experiencing/perceiving a quantity/magnitude of something (e.g.,
proportional to some stimulus) and the abstract apprehension or quantification
of a quantity.

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maxxxxx
I was at an elephant rescue in Thailand and the people there said you always
have to give each of them the same number of bananas because they count
exactly how many their neighbor gets.

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sjg007
Equal pay for equal work.

~~~
maxxxxx
You certainly don't want to have a disgruntled elephant close to you.

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pmarreck
So can any neural network, we should not be shocked by this

