US researchers: Monkeys, college students equal at mental math

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Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1140155

 

Monkeys, college students equal at mental math

Reuters

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 19:53 IST

 

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*The research which was conducted by Duke University, pitted two female

macaque monkeys against 14 Duke University students *

 

CHICAGO: Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental

addition, US researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal

math skills are not unique to humans.

 

The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese

researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than

human adults at a memory game.

 

Prior studies have found non-human primates can match numbers of objects,

compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects.

 

" This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make

explicit decisions that were based on mathematical types of calculations, "

said Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at Duke, whose

work appeared in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Biology (

www.plosbiology.org).

 

" It shows when you take language away from a human, they end up looking just

like monkeys in terms of their performance, " Cantlon said in a telephone

interview.

 

Her study pitted the monkey math team of Boxer and Feinstein — two female

macaque monkeys named for US senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of

California — with 14 Duke University students.

 

" We had them do math on the fly, " Cantlon said. The task was to mentally add

two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams

were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different

screen.

 

 

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