The question can animals count arose during one of our mathematics inputs and it got me to thinking, well can they?

We had been looking at Von Osten and his clever horse, Hans. Osten had a keen interest in animal intelligence and with the help of Hans, this would ultimately win him some degree of fame.

Osten believed firmly that animals had skills and a degree of intelligence that humans as a race had dismissed fully. To show the world that actually, animals can understand maths, he started to tutor a cat, who was unresponsive to his work. He then moved onto a bear, who tried to attack him (like a normal, wild bear would) and finally he tutored Hans the horse. Hans learned to work with Osten and when a number under 10 was written on a board, Hans would be able to tap out the correct number with his hoof.

Osten toured ‘Clever Hans’ all over Germany to show off the horse’s mathematical abilities. More and more people heard about this clever horse and the crowds grew larger and larger. The curious onlookers were seldom disappointed.

However, there were the sceptics. Oskar Pfungst, believed he could unravel the mystery behind this ‘clever horse’. Pfungst created a large tent to house his experiments, in order to eliminate the effects of outside visual stimuli. The outcome was simple; Hans performed very well when questions were asked by his owner, Von Osten. However, when the questioner was not his owner and was made to stand out of sight of the horse, something interesting happened: the horse’s accuracy weakened, though it wasn’t immediately clear why. (Bellows, 2015)

In the years that followed, it has been found that many animals are responsive to subtle and unintentional cues from their human masters. To prevent prejudgments and foreknowledge from contaminating experimental results, modern science employs the double-blind method where researchers and subjects are unaware of many details of the experiment until after the results are recorded. For instance, when drug-sniffing dogs undergo training, none of the people present know which containers have drugs in them; otherwise their body language might betray the location and render the exercise useless.

Even though, Hans may not have been able to understand the fundamentals of mathematics this don’t not stop my curiosity so I then done more research into Ayumu the chimpanzee.

Ayumu the chimp, son of Ai, a chimpanzee whose intelligence has been studied for over 30 years by Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa, can remember the location and order of a set of numbers in less time than it takes the average human to blink. (BBC Nature, 2012) The test was undertaken at Kyoto University in Japan and the chimp managed to solve the puzzle in a remarkable 60 milliseconds. The test was more a test of short term memory which required him to remember the sequential order of numbers which 9/10 he was able to get correct first time. There is no hesitation of Ayumu either, he knows straight away where all the numbers are and completes the task at a mind blowing speed. Regardless of the undoubtable facts that Ayumu can complete this task, does this mean he has a fundamental understanding of mathematics? Does this mean that Ayumu is numerate?

As a class, we tried to do the simplified game and our results were somewhat poor… We were unable as a class of 20 to most times get past the first few numbers. However, does this mean we are not good at maths? Or that our reactions times aren’t as developed as Ayumu’s? Or does it simply mean, our memories are not as advanced as a chimp like Ayumu?

As well as these two well documented experiments there are scientists everywhere trying to prove that animals can understand mathematics and can count. A lot of people are very sceptical of the whole theory and believe that it is just the ability to use their memory better than that of a human memory. Others believe that animals are able to associate action to words or numbers like Hans the horse. Personally, I am undecided on the answer wither or not animals can count but I do believe that all animals are very clever in many different ways and I am sure that we will find out in the near future if they are as clever as we think they are.

BBC Nature. (2012). Chimp sets memory puzzle record. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16832379 [Accessed 28 Nov. 2016].

Bellows, A. (2015). Clever Hans the Math Horse. [online] Damninteresting.com. Available at: https://www.damninteresting.com/clever-hans-the-math-horse/ [Accessed 28 Nov. 2016].