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Numerical competence in animals
Kolbábková, Denisa ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Lindová, Jitka (referee)
Numerical competence is a cognitive ability, which enables using number or determining quantity. It contains not only counting, but also lower cognitive abilities such as summation or relative numerousness. Not only people, but also many animals can use knowledge about quantity in some way. This competence is common crosswise the whole animal kingdom, from invertebrate animals (ants or honeybees), across amphibians and fish to birds and mammals. This bachelor's thesis summarizes the research of numerical competence up to nowadays, it describes also different designs of individual tasks and compares the abilities of animals and people. Based on the evolution of numerical competence of mankind is evident that numerical competence has developed progressively and its difficulness increases. In order the previous I postulate a hypothesis that this difficultness could reflect in a phylogeny. In the end of this thesis thus I am devoted to a phylogenetic reconstruction estimate of the ancestral character status in mammals (primates) and I test wheather ecological factors such as the sociality degree and the food extraction progressed simultaneously with the numerical competence. Keywords: numerical competence, summation, relative and absolute numerousness judgement, ordinality, transitivity, conservation...
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