Is it only humans that count from left to right?

We report that adult nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) and newborn domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) show a leftward bias when required to locate an object in a series of identical ones on the basis of its ordinal position. Birds were trained to peck at either the fourth or sixth element in a series...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biology letters (2005) 2010-06, Vol.6 (3), p.290-292
Main Authors: Rugani, Rosa, Kelly, Debbie M., Szelest, Izabela, Regolin, Lucia, Vallortigara, Giorgio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Behaviour
Animals
Avian Brain
Chickens
Clark's Nutcracker
Cognition
Domestic Chick
Female
Functional Laterality
Gallus gallus
Humans
Male
Mental Number Line
Nucifraga columbiana
Passeriformes
Serial Learning
Space Perception
Spatial Behavior
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Summary:We report that adult nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) and newborn domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) show a leftward bias when required to locate an object in a series of identical ones on the basis of its ordinal position. Birds were trained to peck at either the fourth or sixth element in a series of 16 identical and aligned positions. These were placed in front of the bird, sagittally with respect to its starting position. When, at test, the series was rotated by 90° lying frontoparallel to the bird's starting position, both species showed a bias for identifying selectively the correct position from the left but not from the right end. The similarity with the well-known phenomenon of the left-to-right spatially oriented number line in humans is considered.
ISSN:1744-9561
1744-957X
DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0960