Senin, 18 Juni 2012

Black bears demonstrate they can count as well as primates

Black bears demonstrate they can count as well as primates

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 10:31 EST, 18 June 2012 | UPDATED: 10:31 EST, 18 June 2012


Tests have already shown that our primate cousins can count, but now new research indicates for the first time that black bears also possess the ability.

In a series of tests involving three captive bears, researchers found the animals are able to differentiate between the number of dots shown to them on a screen.

'This is the first published work with bears working on a touch screen. It hasn't been done with any large carnivores,' Jennifer Vonk, the researcher who led the study, was quoted as saying by the BBC.

Counting: Researchers found that bears are able to differentiate between the number of dots shown to them on a screen

Counting: Researchers found that bears are able to differentiate between the number of dots shown to them on a screen

The research, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, involved presenting the bears with two sets of dots or arrays on a touch screen computer.

The team, from Oakland University in the U.S., first trained the bears to understand the process and the equipment used in the experiment.

They touched the screen to select one or other of the arrays, and were rewarded with food if they got the answer right.

Smarter than your average bear: Jellystone Park's most famous resident wouldn't be at all surprised

Smarter than your average bear: Jellystone Park's most famous resident wouldn't be at all surprised

One was rewarded for touching the screen with a greater number dots, while for the other two a correct answer was an array with fewer dots.

The Oakland University team wanted to ensure that the bears were not merely estimating magnitude, a skill that has been shown by many mammals.

So they varied the pattern of the dots and the shaded area on which the arrays were shown, and in some tests the dots were also moving.

'If there's more dots and less area covered - it's a better indication that they actually do something analogous to counting rather than just estimating the amount of something,' Dr Vonk said.

Similar tests have been carried out with primates in the past, but this study if the first to show that bears may have cognitive abilities that are their equal.

'It really opens up the door to asking all kinds of comparative and cognitive questions with a species that really hasn't been investigated in that way before,' Dr Vonk said.

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I'm sure they have bear calculus as well.

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Get the bears to count "one, two, three..." and it will be more believable.

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For all the bears that ever there was Will gather there today because Today's the day The Teddy Bears count their pixels

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I believe some of these Bears have just obtained employment with HMRC due to their skills with numbers. I spoke to one with a sore a--e just the other day.

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Counting helps them avoid the bees when they eat the honey.

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How stupid of humans. Yes animals are intelligent now let them go back to their habitat.

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I'm not surprised they can count. Let's see ... two big people and two little ones - that's a four-course dinner!

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That's nothing. Most redneck women can count to twenty. The men can count to twenty-one.

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well yogi had to keep count of the picnic baskets he stole, so makes sense.

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