ABSTRACT
Recent investigations in the animal learning literature have been concerned, to a varying degree, with the nature of the representational systems of animals, that is, how animals utilize internal copies or codes of physical stimuli in guiding their behavior (see, e.g., Hulse, Fowler, & Honig, 1978; Pearce, 1987; Roitblat, 1987; Roitblat, Bever, & Terrace, 1984). One area of interest currently receiving much attention, as evidenced by reports in this text, is the study of the numerical ability of animals. The fundamental question being addressed is whether the process underlying such ability is functionally equivalent to counting, as it is understood in the human literature. That is, does the performance of animals on numerical tasks reflect the process of applying internal number tags according to the principles specified by Gelman and Gallistel (1978) in their analysis of counting? Since the famous (or, rather, infamous) case of von Osten’s supposedly mathematically inclined horse, Clever Hans, investigators of the numerical ability of animals have been highly sensitized to the possibility of animals employing (seemingly) low-level processes, in lieu of counting, to solve numerical discrimination problems (see Davis, chap. 5, and Rumbaugh, chap. 4, this vol.).
