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One-to-one correspondence without language.


ABSTRACT: A logical rule important in counting and representing exact number is one-to-one correspondence, the understanding that two sets are equal if each item in one set corresponds to exactly one item in the second set. The role of this rule in children's development of counting remains unclear, possibly due to individual differences in the development of language. We report that non-human primates, which do not have language, have at least a partial understanding of this principle. Baboons were given a quantity discrimination task where two caches were baited with different quantities of food. When the quantities were baited in a manner that highlighted the one-to-one relation between those quantities, baboons performed significantly better than when one-to-one correspondence cues were not provided. The implication is that one-to-one correspondence, which requires intuitions about equality and is a possible building block of counting, has a pre-linguistic origin.

SUBMITTER: Koopman SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6837223 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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One-to-one correspondence without language.

Koopman Sarah E SE   Arre Alyssa M AM   Piantadosi Steven T ST   Cantlon Jessica F JF  

Royal Society open science 20191030 10


A logical rule important in counting and representing exact number is one-to-one correspondence, the understanding that two sets are equal if each item in one set corresponds to exactly one item in the second set. The role of this rule in children's development of counting remains unclear, possibly due to individual differences in the development of language. We report that non-human primates, which do not have language, have at least a partial understanding of this principle. Baboons were given  ...[more]

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