Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Testing a Claim about Mean: Known Population SD01:11

Testing a Claim about Mean: Known Population SD

A complete procedure of testing the hypothesis about a population mean is explained here.
Estimating a population mean requires the samples to be distributed normally. The data should be collected from the randomly selected samples having no sampling bias. The sample size needed to be higher than 30, and most importantly, the population standard deviation should be already known.
In most realistic situations, the population standard deviation is often unknown, but in rare circumstances, when it...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Shining a light on jellyfish behaviour: Enhanced motor activity and positive phototaxis in Aurelia coerulea.

Behavioural processes·2026
Same author

Overperceiving desire, underestimating age: a review of a narrow research lens.

Frontiers in psychology·2026
Same author

Individual differences in inhibitory control may influence how endangered eels deal with river barriers during migration.

Animal cognition·2026
Same author

Comparing Proton Transfer Reaction (PTR) and Adduct Ionization Mechanism (AIM) for the Study of Volatile Organic Compounds.

Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)·2026
Same author

A cognitive fallacy in a fish? Glass catfish, like humans, make sub-optimal choices in the Monty Hall dilemma.

Cognition·2026
Same author

Environmental enrichment influences the relationship between lateralization and neophobia in zebrafish larvae.

Animal cognition·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells
10:41

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Published on: July 24, 2014

Spontaneous number representation in mosquitofish.

Marco Dadda1, Laura Piffer, Christian Agrillo

  • 1Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, I-35131 Padova, Italy. marco.dadda@unipd.it

Cognition
|June 13, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Fish can represent numbers, distinguishing larger groups of social companions based solely on quantity. This study provides the first evidence of numerical representation in fish, independent of other visual cues.

More Related Videos

Hybridization Chain Reaction RNA Whole-Mount Fluorescence In situ Hybridization of Chemosensory Genes in Mosquito Olfactory Appendages
06:32

Hybridization Chain Reaction RNA Whole-Mount Fluorescence In situ Hybridization of Chemosensory Genes in Mosquito Olfactory Appendages

Published on: November 17, 2023

Silencing the Spark: CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing in Weakly Electric Fish
08:00

Silencing the Spark: CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing in Weakly Electric Fish

Published on: October 27, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells
10:41

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Published on: July 24, 2014

Hybridization Chain Reaction RNA Whole-Mount Fluorescence In situ Hybridization of Chemosensory Genes in Mosquito Olfactory Appendages
06:32

Hybridization Chain Reaction RNA Whole-Mount Fluorescence In situ Hybridization of Chemosensory Genes in Mosquito Olfactory Appendages

Published on: November 17, 2023

Silencing the Spark: CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing in Weakly Electric Fish
08:00

Silencing the Spark: CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing in Weakly Electric Fish

Published on: October 27, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Comparative psychology
  • Animal cognition
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Preverbal infants and non-human primates demonstrate numerical representation.
  • The presence of numerical capacity in fish remains debated, with prior studies unable to rule out reliance on continuous attributes.
  • Fish can discriminate between different numbers of social companions, but evidence for true numerical representation is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To provide the first evidence that fish can represent numerical quantity.
  • To demonstrate that fish can select larger groups based exclusively on numerical information.
  • To investigate if fish numerical abilities are affected by continuous attributes like density or space.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized an 'item by item' presentation method.
  • Subjects chose between one large and one small group of social companions.
  • Visual input was limited to one fish at a time to isolate numerical processing.

Main Results:

  • Fish successfully selected the larger group of social companions.
  • Performance was consistent across both small (3 vs. 2) and large (8 vs. 4) numerosities.
  • Fish performance was unaffected by group density or the total space occupied.

Conclusions:

  • Fish are capable of representing numerical information independently of continuous visual cues.
  • This study provides the first definitive evidence for numerical representation in fish.
  • The findings suggest a more widespread capacity for numerical cognition across vertebrate species.