Processing of Ordinality and Transitivity by Chimpanzees ( )
Abstract
Three chimpanzees ( ) were trained to discriminate among pairs of boxes in an ABCDE-ordered series. The 2nd member of each pair was reinforced, until all 4 training pairs were learned. During novel tests the nonadjacent BD pair was presented, and all 3 animals reliably selected D. In Experiment 2, numerals 1–5 served as stimuli. One chimpanzee reliably selected the larger numeral 4 during testing with a nonadjacent pair (2–4), and 2 chimps showed no preference. In a 2nd phase, the same chimp demonstrated proficiency at reversing the task, reliably selecting the smaller of the 2–4 pair. In Experiment 4, after additional training, a 2nd test, which included novel test pairs composed of numbers that had not been used during training, was completed. Two of 3 animals were 100% correct on Trial 1 for all novel pairs. The results suggest that chimpanzees with experience in number concepts may recognize the ordinal character of numbers.