Science proves that monkeys can do math

Scientists have long suspected that monkeys have the ability to think math and a new study has helped them prove it.

>>>Animal intelligence

A team led by neurophysiologist Margaret Livingstone trained three brown monkeys to identify symbols representing numbers from 0 to 25.

After that, they taught them how to perform addition calculations. To eliminate the possibility of these monkeys learning parrots, the team gave monkeys a completely new set of symbols. Surprisingly, these three monkeys can still re-apply their previous knowledge to the new set of symbols and continue to solve basic calculations.

The three monkeys in the study recognized these symbols quite well - with an accuracy rate of about 70-90%, depending on how long they were trained.

How do researchers confirm this? They gave monkey a touch screen and taught the monkey to choose between the two icons. Regardless of which option to touch, the monkey will receive a reward in the corresponding amount. Some time later, monkeys learned to choose a higher value when asked to choose between two numbers.

The image above shows that the monkey used his hand to choose the 4 + 5 calculation on the touch screen instead of the number 8. That's because it knows the sum of 4 + 5 higher than 8.

This is how researchers test the ability of monkeys to do addition. Because obviously, if the monkey above chose only the largest number he saw, he would have chosen number 8. If the monkey did not know how to do the addition, they would only be able to answer the correct question about 10% -30% according to the style of sewing.

But that's not what happened. These monkeys actually chose the correct sum at the rate of 50% - a low rate compared to the good of the additive but enough to refute the possibility that these monkeys only learn rote.

Scientists also say that not only monkeys and humans are able to recognize numbers, an earlier study also showed that fish can count from 1 to 4. This challenges the notion that , animal brains are not capable of logical thinking and can help researchers better understand how people think with numbers and calculations.