TY - JOUR

T1 - Precise relative-quantity judgement in the striped field mouse Apodemus agrarius Pallas

AU - Reznikova, Zhanna

AU - Panteleeva, Sofia

AU - Vorobyeva, Nataliya

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

PY - 2019/3/8

Y1 - 2019/3/8

N2 - Applying the classical experimental scheme of training animals with food rewards to discriminate between quantities of visual stimuli, we demonstrated that not only can striped field mice Apodemus agrarius discriminate between clearly distinctive quantities such as 5 and 10, but some of these mice also exhibit high accuracy in discriminating between quantities that differ only by one. The latter include both small (such as 2 versus 3) and relatively large (such as 5 versus 6, and 8 versus 9) quantities of elements. This is the first evidence of precise relative-quantity judgement in wild rodents. We found striking individual variation in cognitive performance among striped field mice, which possibly reflects individual cognitive variation in natural populations. We speculate that high accuracy in differentiating large quantities is based on the adaptive ability of wild rodents to capture subtle changes in their environment. We suggest that the striped field mouse may be a powerful model species to develop advanced cognitive tests for comparative studies of numerical competence in animals and for understanding evolutionary roots of quantity processing.

AB - Applying the classical experimental scheme of training animals with food rewards to discriminate between quantities of visual stimuli, we demonstrated that not only can striped field mice Apodemus agrarius discriminate between clearly distinctive quantities such as 5 and 10, but some of these mice also exhibit high accuracy in discriminating between quantities that differ only by one. The latter include both small (such as 2 versus 3) and relatively large (such as 5 versus 6, and 8 versus 9) quantities of elements. This is the first evidence of precise relative-quantity judgement in wild rodents. We found striking individual variation in cognitive performance among striped field mice, which possibly reflects individual cognitive variation in natural populations. We speculate that high accuracy in differentiating large quantities is based on the adaptive ability of wild rodents to capture subtle changes in their environment. We suggest that the striped field mouse may be a powerful model species to develop advanced cognitive tests for comparative studies of numerical competence in animals and for understanding evolutionary roots of quantity processing.

KW - Behavioural flexibility

KW - Individual cognitive variation

KW - Numerical competence

KW - Relative-quantity judgement

KW - Rodents

KW - Training

KW - Two-choice discrimination

KW - Visual stimuli

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060917947&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10071-019-01244-7

DO - 10.1007/s10071-019-01244-7

M3 - Article

C2 - 30707366

AN - SCOPUS:85060917947

VL - 22

SP - 277

EP - 289

JO - Animal Cognition

JF - Animal Cognition

SN - 1435-9448

IS - 2

ER -