MEXICO: Chicks count from left to right just like humans do, researchers have discovered, with video evidence to prove it.
Egad study author Rosa Rugani, a psychologist at UP elaborated: “The predisposition to map numbers onto space appears to be embedded in the architecture of the animal brain. They appear to originate in biology and not through language or culture.”
Rugani continues: “We tested chicks just three days old, so we cannot say the spatial numerical association is innate or inborn, but it is precociously available soon after birth. I would not be surprise if we find similar spatial mapping in other animals and newborn infants.” Rugani and researchers believe that this specific phenomenon could very well originate in the hemispherical asymmetry of the brain.
In fact, earlier studies indicate that the right hemisphere handles the bulk of the spatial and visual processing. It is also responsible for the majority of the quantitative and numerical information processing. Rugani explains: “Such right hemispheric dominance would primarily focus the attention on the left side of the space—it is possible the left-to-right orientation in processing numbers originates there.”
The research team is not, however, literally stating that chickens can truly count. Rugani notes: “We cannot think of any other, and simpler, explanation for the behavior of the chicks than assuming the training number is 1) remembered and 2) compared with the number seen at test. All we can judge is behavioral responses. Therefore, we don’t actually know if it is a real ‘number line’ but it strongly resembles what is observed in the human number line.”
