What is it like to hear quantities? Testing dolphins on classic number estimation using a sonar setup.

Abstract

The featured article by Sakurai and Tomonaga (2024) in this issue has set out to test to what extent dolphins can estimate relative differences between pairs of object numbers by echolocation. For this they used three consecutive experiments with multiple controls and compared their data statistically to existing data from visual experiments done on other species. Previous studies already indicate that dolphins can visually estimate relative numerosity (e.g., Jaakkola et al., 2005; Yaman et al., 2012). Therefore, the goal of the present study was to investigate the dolphin's capacity to apply Weber's law (quantity judgments are more accurate proportional to the quantities investigated) to two sets of object quantities under sonar evaluation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).