What can the Archer fish teach us about our mathematical abilities?
 
The ability to discriminate between quantities is shared across species. Its importance to survival is tremendous; this is how honeybees distinguish between flowers, how lions know when to approach or avoid another lion’s herd, and how fish choose the largest shoal to increase their chances for survival.
 
The Archer fish is known for its ability to hunt his prey (bugs and flies living above water level) by forming a sort of water pistol with his mouth and shooting water at it. This fish can be trained to shoot at stimuli presented to it on a computer screen.
 
We ask whether discrete quantities (e.g., groups of dots) and continuous quantities (e.g., size of a square) are processed similarly. With that aim in mind we presented the fish with two squares in different sizes or two arrays of dots with different numerosities, and trained it to shoot water at the larger square or the greater numerosity. By studying the reaction times and accuracy rates for these different tasks, and comparing them to those of humans, we can shed light on the building blocks of our highly developed numerical abilities.
 

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Lab member: Tali Leibovich​​​​