Dogs calculate in a similar way to us

Dogs process numerical amounts using a part of their brain similar to what humans use for the same task and dogs don’t need to be trained to do it. These are the conclusions reached by a study conducted by the University of Emory (USA) which was led by the psychology professor, Gregory Berns.

Stella Lourenco, an associate professor of psychology at Emory and co-author of the study that has been published in Biology Letters, has emphasized how important it is to understand neuronal mechanisms, both humans and different species to learn how our brains evolved over time and how they work now. In addition, this knowledge could help in the future to treat brain abnormalities and to improve artificial intelligence systems.

The study involved 11 dogs of different breeds whose brains were scanned while viewing variable numbers of illuminated dots on a screen. The results of the functional MRI showed how the parietal-temporal cortex of the canines responded when the number of points changed. In eight of them, more specifically, this area of the brain was activated to a greater extent when the number of dots was more variable than when it was kept constant.

To ensure that the animals' brains were not responding to the larger or smaller size of the dots but indeed to the quantity, the researchers made them all the same size.

Researchers have associated the response of the animal’s brain to the number of dots with the ability to rapidly estimate a number of objects in a scene like, for example, the number of predators approaching or the amount of food available for feeding. Evidence suggests that humans rely primarily on the parietal-temporal cortex for this ability, which is present even in infancy.

This basic sensitivity to numerical information is known as numerosity and is based neither on training nor on thought. Scientists believe it’s widespread among animals. However, this study on them has been mostly focused on subjects who had previously been trained. In this sense, it was found that certain neurons in the parietal-temporal cortex of monkeys responded to numerical quantities. What was not concluded is whether this was due to numerosity or training, as the primates went through many tests and were rewarded when they selected images with more points.

Humans and dogs are 80 million years apart, says Berns. "Our results provide some of the strongest evidence so far that numerosity is a shared neural mechanism that goes back at least that far," he says.

"Part of the reason we are able to do calculus and algebra is because we have this fundamental ability for the numerosity that we share with other animals," says Lauren Aulet, who has also participated in the study. "I am interested in learning how we evolve that superior mathematical ability and how these skills develop over time in individuals, beginning with basic childhood numerosity".

Research that has been done on dogs that have been trained to discriminate between different quantities of objects has indicated that they were also sensitive to numerosity.

Dog Project is a project founded by Gregory Berns that is in charge of investigating the evolutionary aspects of dogs. This project pioneered in training canines to voluntarily get into a scanner and stand still, without sedation, and without having to hold them in any way.