Chicks Can Count Numbers like Humans

According to a new study by Italian researchers, baby chicks have ability to count from left to right. Researchers conducted a series of experiments that showed that three days old chicks counted lower numerical values to their left and higher values with space to the right.

Rosa Rugani, who is a psychologist at the University of Padova as well as the leading author of the study, said, “The predisposition to map numbers onto space appears to be embedded in the architecture of the animal brain. They appear to originate in biology and not through language or culture.”

Researchers tested around sixty baby chicks that were three days old. The birds were familiarized with a specific number of small squares on one panel to which some food was attached. After that the chicks were presented to a couple of other panels displaying an identical number of squares that were either smaller or larger than the original one.
Researchers found that chicks tried to investigate the panel on the left where the numbers were smaller and they were drawn to the right side in case the panel contain higher number of dots.

Researchers also found that the association remained the same when researchers altered the numbers from left to right. If the target number was five and number displayed on the panels were two, chicks moved to their left. In case the target number remained 5 and the number was eight on the choice panels, chicks preferred to investigate the right hand panel.


“We cannot think of any other, and simpler, explanation for the behavior of the chicks than assuming the training number is 1) remembered and 2) compared with the number seen at test. All we can judge is behavioral responses. Therefore, we don’t actually know if it is a real ‘number line’ but it strongly resembles what is observed in the human number line,” said Rugani.