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Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli

Several studies have suggested that vertebrate and invertebrate species may possess a number sense, i.e. an ability to process in a non-symbolic and non-verbal way the numerousness of a set of items. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the presence of other non-numerical continuous physi...

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Autores principales: Zanon, Mirko, Potrich, Davide, Bortot, Maria, Vallortigara, Giorgio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8863760/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34117632
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y
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author Zanon, Mirko
Potrich, Davide
Bortot, Maria
Vallortigara, Giorgio
author_facet Zanon, Mirko
Potrich, Davide
Bortot, Maria
Vallortigara, Giorgio
author_sort Zanon, Mirko
collection PubMed
description Several studies have suggested that vertebrate and invertebrate species may possess a number sense, i.e. an ability to process in a non-symbolic and non-verbal way the numerousness of a set of items. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the presence of other non-numerical continuous physical variables, which vary along with numerosity (i.e., any change in the number of visual physical elements in a set naturally involves a related change in visual features such as area, density, contour length and convex hull of the stimulus). It is therefore necessary to control and manipulate the continuous physical information when investigating the ability of humans and other animals to perceive numerousness. During decades of research, different methods have been implemented in order to address this issue, which has implications for experiment replicability and inter-species comparisons, since no general standardized procedure is currently being used. Here we present the ‘Generation of Numerical Elements Images Software’ (GeNEsIS) for the creation of non-symbolic numerical arrays in a standardized and user-friendly environment. The main aim of this tool is to provide researchers in the field of numerical cognition a manageable and precise instrument to produce visual numerical arrays controlled for all the continuous variables. Additionally, we implemented the ability to actively guide stimuli presentation during habituation/dishabituation and dual-choice comparison tasks used in human and comparative research. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y.
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spelling pubmed-88637602022-03-02 Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli Zanon, Mirko Potrich, Davide Bortot, Maria Vallortigara, Giorgio Behav Res Methods Article Several studies have suggested that vertebrate and invertebrate species may possess a number sense, i.e. an ability to process in a non-symbolic and non-verbal way the numerousness of a set of items. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the presence of other non-numerical continuous physical variables, which vary along with numerosity (i.e., any change in the number of visual physical elements in a set naturally involves a related change in visual features such as area, density, contour length and convex hull of the stimulus). It is therefore necessary to control and manipulate the continuous physical information when investigating the ability of humans and other animals to perceive numerousness. During decades of research, different methods have been implemented in order to address this issue, which has implications for experiment replicability and inter-species comparisons, since no general standardized procedure is currently being used. Here we present the ‘Generation of Numerical Elements Images Software’ (GeNEsIS) for the creation of non-symbolic numerical arrays in a standardized and user-friendly environment. The main aim of this tool is to provide researchers in the field of numerical cognition a manageable and precise instrument to produce visual numerical arrays controlled for all the continuous variables. Additionally, we implemented the ability to actively guide stimuli presentation during habituation/dishabituation and dual-choice comparison tasks used in human and comparative research. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y. Springer US 2021-06-11 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8863760/ /pubmed/34117632 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Zanon, Mirko
Potrich, Davide
Bortot, Maria
Vallortigara, Giorgio
Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title_full Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title_fullStr Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title_full_unstemmed Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title_short Towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: GeNEsIS, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
title_sort towards a standardization of non-symbolic numerical experiments: genesis, a flexible and user-friendly tool to generate controlled stimuli
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8863760/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34117632
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01580-y
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