Influence of Shape, Color, Size and Relative Position of Elements on Their Counting by an Ant

Abstract

It was previously shown that workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti can discriminate small numbers of elements during testing when these elements were identical to those learned during training. Here we examine if this numerosity ability still subsists if the shape, color, size or location of the elements (dots) to count are modified between training and testing. We found that the ants’ counting ability was not significantly affected by changing one of these features although a somewhat lesser ability was observed. Among the changes, it was that of the relative position of the elements which disrupted the most the ants’ counting ability, followed by a change of their size. A change in the color or the shape affected the least the ants’ counting. These impacts of feature changes in the learned cues on the ants’ counting can be explained by characteristics of the visual perception of the species as well as by its behavioral ecology.

Ants Can Associate a Symbol with a Number of Elements Through Conditioning

“…The ants' association between a symbol and two elements was thus only slightly influenced by the appearance of the elements. Such an effect was also found in another experimental work (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020d). The above related experiments show that the ants acquired numerosity symbolism for the amount 2 through conditioning.…”

“…C D E F three here above related experiments, we can conclude that the ants' learning of a symbol corresponding to the numerosity 1 was in a broad extent independent of the characteristics (shape, color, size) of the element representing the number 1, changes in these characteristics having had only a slight influence. It should be noted that in a previous experiment (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020d), the counting ability of ants was also, though not significantly, affected by changes in the features of the learned elements.…”

Summary of Seven More Studies on Numerosity Abilities in an Ant, Four of Them Relating to Human Competence

“…Whatever was the change of the characteristics of the cues to count between training and testing (change of shape, color, size, or position), the ants still statistically significantly discriminated 1 vs 2, 2 vs 3, and 3 vs 4 of these elements. However, compared with their usual conditioning score of ca 80% (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2014;Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2019a), their discrimination accuracy was a little affected when the characteristics of the cues to count were modified between training and testing (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020e). Changing the shape or the color of the elements to count only slightly affected the ants' counting ability (colonies A, B, C, D, E, F).…”

“…Of course, human adults were successfully experimented using amounts of elements of different sizes, areas, perimeters, densities, and displayed patterns (Cantlon & Brannon, 2006;Merten & Nieder, 2008). We intended to somewhat fill the gap between true counting and the masking effect of extraneous variables in ants (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020e).…”

Ants Can Add Up Using Learned Numeric Symbols

“…Control for extraneous variables was also made in the above-cited studies on honeybee number discrimination. As for ants, the numerical discrimination ability of M. sabuleti workers was shown to be slightly, not significantly, impacted by changes in the non-numeral characteristics of the elements (Cammaerts & Cammaerts, 2020a). Taking account of the strength of this impact and of the ants' adding competence, it can be inferred, according to Gelman and Gallistel's (1978) definition of counting ability, that the M. sabuleti workers' numerical competence reaches the cardinality stage, but not that of abstraction.…”