Abstract
Several studies have investigated the ontogeny of the capacity to discriminate between discrete numerical information in human and non-human animals. Contrarily, less attention has been devoted to the development of the capacity to discriminate continuous quantities. Recently, we set up a fast procedure for screening continuous quantity abilities in adult individuals of an animal model in neurodevelopmental research, the zebrafish. Two different sized holes are presented in a wall that divides the home tank in two halves and the spontaneous preference of fish for passing through the larger hole is exploited to measure their discrimination ability. We tested zebrafish larvae in the first, second and third week of life varying the relative size of the smaller circle (0.60, 0.75, 0.86, 0.91 area ratio). We found that the number of passages increased across the age. The capacity to discriminate the larger hole decreased as the ratio between the areas increased. No difference in accuracy was found as a function of age. The accuracy of larval zebrafish almost overlaps that found in adults in a previous study, suggesting a limited role of maturation and experience on the ability to estimate areas in this species.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Stefano Massaccesi for his help in setting up the experimental apparatus and Denisa Margjonaj for her help with testing the animals and with the video analyses. This research was supported by “PRIN 2015” (prot.: 2015FFATB7) to A.B. from Università di Padova, by “Stars@unipd” Grant (ANIM_ILLUS) to C.A. from Università di Padova and by “Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action” (MSCA 750200) to M.E.M.P. We performed the present work within the scope of the research grant ‘Dipartimenti di Eccellenza’ entitled ‘Innovative methods or technologies for assessment, intervention, or enhancement of psychological functions (cognitive, emotional or behavioural)’.
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The experiments were approved by the Ethical Committee of the Università di Padova (protocol no. 61/2018) and adhered to the current legislation of the country in which they were performed (Italy, Decreto Legislativo 4 Marzo 2014, no. 26).
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Santacà, M., Agrillo, C., Miletto Petrazzini, M.E. et al. The ontogeny of continuous quantity discrimination in zebrafish larvae (Danio rerio). Anim Cogn 23, 731–739 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01384-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01384-1