Higher-math skills entwined with lower-order magnitude sense

The ability to learn complex, symbolic math is a uniquely human trait, but it is intricately connected to a primitive sense of magnitude that is shared by many animals, finds a study to be published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"Our results clearly show that uniquely human branches of mathematics interface with an evolutionarily primitive general magnitude system," says lead author Stella Lourenco, a psychologist at Emory University. "We were able to show how variations in both advanced arithmetic and geometry skills specifically correlated with variations in our intuitive sense of magnitude."

Babies as young as six months can roughly distinguish between less and more, whether it’s for a number of objects, the size of objects, or the length of time they see the objects. This intuitive, non-verbal sense of magnitude, which may be innate, has also been demonstrated in non-human animals. When given a choice between a group of five bananas or two bananas, for example, monkeys will tend to take the bigger bunch.

"It’s obviously of adaptive value for all animals to be able to discriminate between less and more," Lourenco says. "The ability is widespread across the animal kingdom – fish, rodents and even insects show sensitivity to magnitude, such as the number of items in a set of objects."

Bird-brains solve problems spontaneously

In certain situations animals can spontaneously solve problems without planning their actions, according to research from The University of Auckland’s School of Psychology.

Animals rarely solve problems spontaneously, yet certain bird species are able to rapidly gain access to food hung on the end of a long string, by repeatedly pulling and then stepping on the string. For over 400 years it has been a mystery as to how the birds spontaneously solve the “string pulling” problem.

The University of Auckland research shows that such problem solving is not created by birds first solving the problem in their heads. Rather, problem solving occurs online as the bird makes the food on the end of the string move.

“Crows and parrots have long been known to solve the string pulling problem immediately. What our new research shows is that these performances are due to the birds being able to react in the moment to the effects of their actions, rather than being able to mentally plan out their actions,” says Dr Alex Taylor, lead author on the study.

“Thus string pulling appears to be based on a different type of intelligence than we had thought. Instead of the crows using sophisticated cognitive software to model the world, it appears their neural hardware is sufficiently well connected and/or specialised for them to react to the effect of their actions immediately. This allows them to solve problems that other bird species cannot.”

The work, by Dr Taylor, Brenna Knaebe and Professor Russell Gray, titled “An end to insight? New Caledonian crows can spontaneously solve problems without planning their actions”, has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences online.

The Gambler’s Fallacy Is Associated with Weak Affective Decision Making but Strong Cognitive Ability

Humans demonstrate an inherent bias towards making maladaptive decisions, as shown by a phenomenon known as the gambler’s fallacy (GF). The GF has been traditionally considered as a heuristic bias supported by the fast and automatic intuition system, which can be overcome by the reasoning system. The present study examined an intriguing hypothesis, based on emerging evidence from neuroscience research, that the GF might be attributed to a weak affective but strong cognitive decision making mechanism. With data from a large sample of college students, we found that individuals’ use of the GF strategy was positively correlated with their general intelligence and executive function, such as working memory and conflict resolution, but negatively correlated with their affective decision making capacities, as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task. Our result provides a novel insight into the mechanisms underlying the GF, which highlights the significant role of affective mechanisms in adaptive decision-making.

Why clever crow is no bird brain

Corvus moneduloides, a native of France’s South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, is one of the stars of the avian world.

It uses its beak to craft complex tools from sticks, leaves and other material and then inserts them into deadwood or vegetation to fish out insects and other food.

Researchers led by Jolyon Troscianko of the University of Birmingham in central England used an ophthalmoscope video camera to record field of view and eye movement as three wild-caught birds examined a baited tube.

The bird’s eyes are more forward-positioned, rather than sideways-positioned, which gives it exceptional “binocular overlap,” they found.

This is the area that is viewed by both eyeballs, and is important because it helps the brain judge the distance of nearby objects.

In New Caledonian crows, the binocular overlap is 61.5 degrees, which is at least 23.9 degrees greater than in non-tool-using species of crow that the researchers also examined.

Added to this is the crow’s unusually straight bill, the investigators found.

With it, the bird can get a firm grip on a tool and bring its tip into its field of binocular vision.

"These features enable a degree of tool control that would be impossible in other corvids [crows], despite their comparative cognitive abilities," says the study, published by the journal Nature Communications.

Dolphins, elephants and other birds are among non-primates that have been found to use tools. But the New Caledonian crow occupies a privileged place because its features are so specifically adapted for tools, says the study.

Chewing Ability Linked to Reduced Dementia Risk

The population is aging, and the older we become the more likely it is that we risk deterioration of our cognitive functions, such as memory, decision-making and problem solving. Research indicates several possible contributors to these changes, with several studies demonstrating an association between not having teeth and loss of cognitive function and a higher risk of dementia.

One reason for this could be that few or no teeth makes chewing difficult, which leads to a reduction in the blood flow to the brain. However, to date there has been no direct investigation into the significance of chewing ability in a national representative sample of elderly people.  

Now a team comprised of researchers from the Department of Dental Medicine and the Aging Research Center (ARC) at Karolinska Institutet and from Karlstad University in Sweden have looked at tooth loss, chewing ability and cognitive function in a random nationwide sample of 557 people aged 77 or older. They found that those who had difficulty chewing hard food such as apples had a significantly higher risk of developing cognitive impairments. This correlation remained even when controlling for sex, age, education and mental health problems, variables that are often reported to impact on cognition. Whether chewing ability was sustained with natural teeth or dentures also had no bearing on the effect.

The results are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS).

Compassion meditation may boost neural basis of empathy

A compassion-based meditation program can significantly improve a person’s ability to read the facial expressions of others, finds a study published by Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. This boost in empathic accuracy was detected through both behavioral testing of the study participants and through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of their brain activity.

“It’s an intriguing result, suggesting that a behavioral intervention could enhance a key aspect of empathy,” says lead author Jennifer Mascaro, a post-doctoral fellow in anthropology at Emory University. “Previous research has shown that both children and adults who are better at reading the emotional expressions of others have better relationships.”

The meditation protocol, known as Cognitively-Based Compassion Training, or CBCT, was developed at Emory by study co-author Lobsang Tenzin Negi, director of the Emory-Tibet Partnership. Although derived from ancient Tibetan Buddhist practices, the CBCT program is secular in content and presentation.

What the brain draws from: Art and neuroscience

The human brain is wired in such a way that we can make sense of lines, colors and patterns on a flat canvas. Artists throughout human history have figured out ways to create illusions such as depth and brightness that aren’t actually there but make works of art seem somehow more real.

And while individual tastes are varied and have cultural influences, the brain also seems to respond especially strongly to certain artistic conventions that mimic what we see in nature.

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New research methods reveal that babies and young children learn by rationally testing hypotheses, analyzing statistics and doing experiments much as scientists do

Very young children’s learning and thinking is strikingly similar to much learning and thinking in science, according to Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Gopnik’s findings are described in the Sept 28 issue of the journal Science. She spoke about her work in a video briefing with NSF.