Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus)
Quantity discrimination has been studied extensively in different non-human animal species. In the current study, we tested 11 hand-raised wolves (Canis lupus) in a two-way choice task. We placed a number of food items (one to four) sequentially into two opaque cans and asked the wolves to choose th...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3499916 2023-05-15T15:49:39+02:00 Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) Utrata, Ewelina Virányi, Zsófia Range, Friederike 2012-11-16 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3499916 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23181044 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 en eng Frontiers Media S.A. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3499916 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23181044 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 Copyright © 2012 Utrata, Virányi and Range. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc. CC-BY Psychology Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 2013-09-04T16:01:47Z Quantity discrimination has been studied extensively in different non-human animal species. In the current study, we tested 11 hand-raised wolves (Canis lupus) in a two-way choice task. We placed a number of food items (one to four) sequentially into two opaque cans and asked the wolves to choose the larger amount. Moreover, we conducted two additional control conditions to rule out non-numerical properties of the presentation that the animals might have used to make the correct choice. Our results showed that wolves are able to make quantitative judgments at the group, but also at the individual level even when alternative strategies such as paying attention to the surface area or time and total amount are ruled out. In contrast to previous canine studies on dogs (Canis familiaris) and coyotes (Canis latrans), our wolves’ performance did not improve with decreasing ratio, referred to as Weber’s law. However, further studies using larger quantities than we used in the current set-up are still needed to determine whether and when wolves’ quantity discrimination conforms to Weber’s law. Text Canis lupus PubMed Central (PMC) Frontiers in Psychology 3 |
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Psychology Utrata, Ewelina Virányi, Zsófia Range, Friederike Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
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Psychology |
description |
Quantity discrimination has been studied extensively in different non-human animal species. In the current study, we tested 11 hand-raised wolves (Canis lupus) in a two-way choice task. We placed a number of food items (one to four) sequentially into two opaque cans and asked the wolves to choose the larger amount. Moreover, we conducted two additional control conditions to rule out non-numerical properties of the presentation that the animals might have used to make the correct choice. Our results showed that wolves are able to make quantitative judgments at the group, but also at the individual level even when alternative strategies such as paying attention to the surface area or time and total amount are ruled out. In contrast to previous canine studies on dogs (Canis familiaris) and coyotes (Canis latrans), our wolves’ performance did not improve with decreasing ratio, referred to as Weber’s law. However, further studies using larger quantities than we used in the current set-up are still needed to determine whether and when wolves’ quantity discrimination conforms to Weber’s law. |
format |
Text |
author |
Utrata, Ewelina Virányi, Zsófia Range, Friederike |
author_facet |
Utrata, Ewelina Virányi, Zsófia Range, Friederike |
author_sort |
Utrata, Ewelina |
title |
Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
title_short |
Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
title_full |
Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
title_fullStr |
Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
title_full_unstemmed |
Quantity Discrimination in Wolves (Canis lupus) |
title_sort |
quantity discrimination in wolves (canis lupus) |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3499916 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23181044 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 |
genre |
Canis lupus |
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Canis lupus |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3499916 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23181044 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2012 Utrata, Virányi and Range. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00505 |
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Frontiers in Psychology |
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3 |
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1766384688218243072 |