ArticleScientific reports2020
Application of an abstract concept across magnitude dimensions by fish.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spatial representation of magnitude in rhesus macaques: Investigating SNARC effects in quantity and size dimensions.Learning & behavior · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Trajectories of Consciousness: From Biological Foundations to Technological Horizons.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Visual Discrimination Task in Guppies Using a Simultaneous Matching-to-Sample Procedure.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Article
- Zebrafish excel in number discrimination under an operant conditioning paradigm.Animal cognition · 2022Article
- Continuous versus discrete quantity discrimination in dune snail (Mollusca: Gastropoda) seeking thermal refuges.Scientific reports · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mastering relational concepts and applying them to different contexts presupposes abstraction capacities and implies a high level of cognitive sophistication. One way to investigate extrapolative abilities is to assess cross-dimensional application of an abstract relational magnitude rule to new domains. Here we show that angelfish initially trained to choose either the shorter of two lines in a spatial task (line-length discrimination task) or the array with "fewer" items (numerical discrimination task) spontaneously transferred the learnt rule to novel stimuli belonging to the previously unseen dimension demonstrating knowledge of the abstract concept of "smaller". Our finding challenges the idea that the ability to master abstract magnitude concepts across domains is unique to humans and suggests that the circuits involved in rule learning and magnitude processing might be evolutionary conserved.
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