Can Monk Parakeets compare quantities faster and/or better than Humans? A Research Proposal

Abstract

When comparing two sets of objects, one can compare their cardinalities, or map one set to the other. Which of the two comparison methods an individual (human or not) is using depends of the cardinalities compared and of whether the representation is well known or not. While the discrimination ability is well documented for various species, less information is available on their discrimination mode. How can one measure the discrimination ability and mode of individuals? We propose to design, implement and test a Digital Life Enrichment application requesting subjects to select the maximum of a set of values while measuring the answering time of the subject; and to decide the mode of comparison used by comparing how those answering time vary with the numeric representations (symbolic or random).