Fish Discovered Can Learn Mathematical Operations

As most of us will know from kindergarten and primary school periods, the use of colored blocks to teach children the four processes is an extremely common system. With this method, it can become easier to teach children basic mathematical processes such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

However, it seems that some sea creatures can also learn mathematics thanks to this way. It has been discovered that cichlids and stingrays, who have undergone a similar training by scientists, can successfully learn easy math processes.

Sea creatures are taught basic math

According to an article published Thursday in Scientific Reports, the research group found that these animals exhibited the ability to learn basic math and even taught themselves this knowledge. He stated that they used it to solve the given little logic puzzles. “We trained animals to do easy addition and subtraction processes,” said Vera Schluessel of the Institute of Zoology at the University of Bonn and the study’s lead author. “In doing so, they had to increase or decrease the initial cost one by one.” he added to his words.

The research group first gave an animal that they put in the tank an image with one to five central squares, circles, and triangles. In these forms, which are sometimes in different sizes and in a mixed form, only blue and yellow were used as colors. The blue color meant “add one”, while the yellow color meant “take one out”. For example, if three blue squares were displayed, it was synonymous with “3+1”. In this first stage, animals had to recognize the number of depicted objects and grasp the rule of calculating from their colors at the same time.

After memorizing the photograph shown to him, each animal was given two new photographs this time. One of the photos had one less state, while the other had two more forms. Depending on the form and color of the photo shown, the animals had to actually swim to the second image corresponding to this image.

For example: Let’s say a stingray was first shown four yellow shapes. It was the equivalent of asking them what a 4-1 is. Accordingly, when two new images are shown, what the stingray needs to do is to swim the picture with three forms on it. This process may seem quite easy to us right now, but it is extremely difficult for a creature like a fish to grasp. On the matter, “When the original photo was replaced with two result photos, they had to keep both in working memory. And then they had to decide on the correct outcome.” Schlussel said, “Overall, an achievement that requires complex thinking skills.” recorded in.

Animal subjects were rewarded with a small reward each time they gave the truth in return. In time, the most difficult process for sea creatures, which became more and more beautiful in these processes, was the extraction process.

After the education level, it was time for the testing phase. The researchers wanted to make sure these animals weren’t just trained to necessarily get yummy rewards with sights, but instead had truly internalized how addition and subtraction is done. For this reason, the researchers, who deliberately skipped the 3+1 and 3-1 processes during training, observed that the answers given by the animals that encountered these two processes for the first time during the test phase were still largely inaccurate. Subjects generally had good results, even as the researchers made the processes more complex over time.

Sea creatures can exhibit a similar intellectual process to humans

Considering that it has been proven in the past that fish can distinguish numerical costs, this result is not so surprising; however, the ability of these creatures to use complex strategies such as arithmetic is still quite impressive. Considering that, unlike us and other vertebrates, they do not have cerebral cortex to complete complex cognitive tasks, it is fascinating that these creatures exhibit an intentional process like us.

With all this, the researchers underline that these findings add to a unified pool of evidence that fish are much smarter than we thought and deserve much more respect than we do.