ABSTRACT
The response in parietal cortex temporally preceded the prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity, suggesting differential roles of the parietal cortex and PFC in the coding of numerical information. While the PFC appears to be involved in selecting goal-directed number processing behavior, parietal cortex activity appears to be crucial in encoding and maintaining numerical information in working memory. One crucial aspect of the numerical capacities described so far is their spontaneous emergence. Many species are capable of exploiting numerical information from their environment without having experienced any sort of training. The very same visuo-spatial processes support calculation abilities – irrespective of the format of the numerical information the calculation was carried out in. The examples of animals that spontaneously recognize and use numerosity information are legion and extend beyond mammals, including insects, fish, and birds. As numerical distance between test and sample increased, the percentage of trials in which the animals considered that the test matched the sample decreased.
