Harris Emily H, Gulledge Jonathan P, Beran Michael J, Washburn David A
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 2010 Jan;36(1):66-76. doi: 10.1037/a0016485.
In the past, rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) have demonstrated an ability to use Arabic numerals to facilitate performance in a variety of tasks. However, it remained unclear whether they understood the absolute and relative values of numerals. In Experiment 1, numeral-trained macaques picked the larger stimuli when presented with pairwise comparisons involving numerals and analog quantities. In Experiment 2, macaques were provided with numeral cues indicating the number of times a behavior could be performed in one location for a reward. Of the 4 monkeys, 3 performed above chance, but they often erred by performing more behaviors than indicated. The results of these studies indicate that the monkeys have knowledge of the approximate quantities represented by each numeral.
过去，恒河猴（猕猴）已表现出能够使用阿拉伯数字来促进在各种任务中的表现。然而，它们是否理解数字的绝对值和相对值仍不清楚。在实验1中，经过数字训练的猕猴在面对涉及数字和类似数量的两两比较时，会选择较大的刺激物。在实验2中，给猕猴提供数字线索，表明在一个位置为了获得奖励可以执行某种行为的次数。在4只猴子中，有3只的表现高于随机水平，但它们经常出错，执行的行为比指示的更多。这些研究结果表明，猴子了解每个数字所代表的近似数量。
