It's a Math World for Animals£¨3£©
One interesting follow-up study would be to do a similar experiment with people of different ages,Pennings says£®Results might show an innate ability to do math that gets better or worse as people grow up and go to school£®
Studying math skills in dogs to understand math in people might not be such a far-fetched idea£®In fact, some research is showing that babies and animals actually have a lot in common when it comes to numbers£®
Most animal math research has focused on primates£®To test whether a monkey can tell the difference between numbers of objects, scientists measure how long an animal looks at things£®A monkey will look longer at something that doesn't match what it expects to see£®
Using this technique, researchers have shown that monkeys can add and subtract small numbers of objects£®If they are shown one apple slice and then another, for example, they know there should be a total of two£®They will then look for a longer time at a pile of three or one than at a pile of two£®
Recent evidence also shows that some primates know the difference between more and less£®Cotton-top tamarins look longer at two Froot Loops than at one£®Rhesus macaques look longer at three turnips than at two£®