Psychology 2210A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Approximate Number System, Object File, Animal Cognition

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2210A/B
• Professor: Krista Macpherson

Document Summary

Both fundamental cognitive processes, which assist animals in day-to-day survival. Need to know if there are 2 predators or 20 predators approaching. Need to know how long it has been since the animal found food, scanned horizon for predators, etc. Though we study these two topics in different ways, underlying cognitive processes are very similar. Can animals count many animals have been shown to have numerical tendencies. True counting and arithmetic are uniquely human skills. Both human and non-human animals, however, share a non-verbal ability to discriminate numerical magnitude. very important for an animal to know how many predators are in front of you or how many young you have. Could be important for counting number of offspring, food, predators, etc. counting is uniquely human -- animals are able to do numerical discrimination. Nominal: assigned number relevant only to humans (ex: the number an athlete wears on their jersey, student number, participant number) assigned for identification purposes typically.