Dogs process numerical quantities using a part of their brain similar to that used by humans for such a task. Also, dogs do not need to be trained to do so. These are the conclusions reached by a study conducted by Emory University (United States) and led by professor of psychology Gregory Berns.
Stella Lourenco, associate professor of psychology at Emory and co-author of the study that has been published in Biology Letters , has highlighted how important it is to understand neural mechanisms, both in humans and between species, in order to understand how our brains evolved over time and how they work now. In addition, this knowledge could help in the future to treat brain abnormalities and improve artificial intelligence systems.
Eleven dogs of different breeds participated in the study and had their brains scanned while viewing varying numbers of illuminated dots on a screen. The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging showed how the parietotemporal cortex of dogs responded when the number of points changed. In eight of them, more specifically, this area of the brain was activated to a greater extent when the number of numbers was more changeable than when it was kept constant.
To make sure that the brain of the animals was not responding to a larger or smaller size of the points but indeed to the quantity, the researchers made all of them the same size.
Researchers have associated the response of the animals’ brains to the number of dots with the ability to quickly estimate a number of objects in a scene, such as the number of approaching predators or the amount of food available for feeding. Evidence suggests that humans rely primarily on the parietal cortex for this ability, which is present even in childhood.
This basic sensitivity to numerical information is known as numerousness and is not based on training or thinking. Scientists believe that it is widespread among animals. However, his study of them has been mostly focused on subjects who had been previously trained. In this sense, it was found that certain neurons in the parietal cortex of monkeys responded to numerical quantities . What was not concluded is whether this was due to the numbers or to training, since the primates went through many tests and were rewarded when they selected images with more points.
Humans and dogs are separated by 80 million years of evolution, Berns notes. “Our results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that numerousness is a shared neural mechanism that goes back at least as far as that point,” he says.
“Part of the reason we are able to do calculus and algebra is because we have this fundamental ability for numerousness that we share with other animals,” says Lauren Aulet, who was also involved in the study. “I’m interested in learning how we evolve that higher mathematical ability and how these skills develop over time in individuals, starting with basic numbers in childhood.”
Research that has been done on dogs that have been trained to discriminate between different amounts of objects have indicated that these, too, were sensitive to numbers.
Dog Project is a project founded by Gregory Berns that is in charge of investigating the evolutionary aspects of dogs . This project was a pioneer in training dogs to voluntarily enter a scanner and stay still, without sedating them or restraining them in any way.
