Numbers meet space - Rosa Rugani
  • Home
  • The project
  • The Departments and Universities
  • Pills of numbers and space
    • News
    • Posters
    • Gallery
  • About
    • Rosa Rugani
    • Press
  • EMAIL
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

ABOUT ME

Rosa Rugani

I am a researcher in the Department of General Psychology at the University of Padova, Italy. I started my research experience about 15 years ago in the Comparative Psychology Research Group of the Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy. After completing my doctorate, I carried out research on numerical cognition at the Department of General Psychology of the University of Padova, and at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento, Italy and at the Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, United States.

I was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Avian Cognition at Saskatchewan University in Canada, and at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, North Carolina, USA, and the Psychology Department, University Potsdam, Germany.

In my research activity, to deepen knowledge about ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution of numerical cognition, I designed new paradigms to investigate cognitive abilities in species as diverse as fish, monkeys, frogs, nutcrackers, adult and newborn humans; but the animal model I mainly used is the domestic chick.

My research activity has been funded by:

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions; H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 Global fellowship “SNANeB – At the roots of Spatial Numerical Association: from behavioural observation to Neural Basis”, 795242- SNANeB for 36 months.

German Academic Exchange Service or Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD, funding programme: Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists, 2017, 91644645. University of Potsdam for two months.

“Bando a sostegno dei ricercatori per attività di networking e presentazione di progetti di ricerca internazionali – year 2014/2015, by University of Padova”, 151748.

Giovani Studiosi Program, University of Padova. Proposed Project: “A comparative investigation of left-right asymmetries in spatial numerical processing. Behavioural evidence from an animal model: the domestic chick (Gallus gallus)”. GRIC101142 for 24 months.

Doctoral research grant from the Fondazione CARIPARO: “At the roots of the number competence. Meta-Analysis of the literature on the different animal species and an experimental contribution to the understanding of rudimental numerical abilities in an animal model, the young domestic chick (Gallus gallus)”, for 36 months.

The development of my research interest

My interest in animal numerical cognition arose when I was an undergraduate student. I was attending the Professor Mario Zanforlin’s animal cognition course. In his lectures, we discussed several cognitive and perceptual abilities from a comparative perspective. At that time, the early 21st century, I was surprised to notice how sparse studies on animal numerical abilities were. Also in our text, Altre Menti, by Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara, his chapter dedicated to numerical abilities was brief compared to his other sections, which were comprehensive and detailed. I started reading scientific literature on animal numerical competence and, to my astonishment, I noticed all studies were on adult and usually over-trained animals. Questions grew in my mind. How early can animals employ numerical cues? Is training or long life experience needed to develop numerical abilities? At that time, I had just begun my first experiment with animals by studying working memory in day-old chicks. In these experiments, chicks, after being reared with an artificial social companion of a red plastic ball, were able to remember where an object had disappeared for up to three minutes. I was impressed by chicks’ motivation in looking for their social companion. I wondered whether a similar rearing experience could be used to test numerical abilities. I therefore asked my supervisor Professor Lucia Regolin whether it could be possible for me to run extra experiments on numerical discrimination — fortunately she agreed. For the following years, I worked every day in our laboratory and my passion drew daily every day.

In our first long series of experiments, we showed that after a simple exposure to artificial objects, chicks discriminated between different numbers of social companions. Interestingly enough, 3-day-old chicks used numerical cues in absence of any numerical training, indicating numerical information is early usable by very naïve ‘minds’. I was astonished by these results and happily, I focused my doctoral research on this topic, trying to design new paradigms to understand how sophisticated chicks’ numerical comprehension is.

Early on, we exploited chicks’ preference for a larger group of artificial social companions to test arithmetic abilities. Again, we reared chicks with a group of identical objects, for example five, then at test these objects were presented one at a time. Then three objects disappeared behind a panel and two objects behind another. Chicks circumnavigated the panel hiding the larger group, indicating they created a representation for both groups, by adding an element to the other one. We then compared these representations to retrieve the larger one! Further research showed chicks mastered arithmetic calculation involving larger numbers, such as 6 versus 9 or 5 versus 10. Yet, they failed with a 3 versus 4 comparison, even if the use of cognitive strategies, such as grouping, timing or object individuation, enhance calculation.

In a different series of experiments, we investigated whether chicks could use numerical/ordinal information to navigate their environment while looking for food. Chicks initially learned to find food only in a container in a series of identical ones. For example when the fourth one contained food. Chicks non-solely learned this task in a few hours, but when we modified the spacing between the containers, they did not rely on spatial cues such as distance, but on numerical cues, indicating chicks ‘count’. A natural follow-up to this study was to understand the direction of counting. In other words, we wondered, do birds count from left to right?

We trained chicks to identify a target element in a sagittal oriented series and then rotated the series 90 degrees. This way, there were two ‘correct’ containers; one on their left and one on their right. Chicks, and later nutcrackers and rhesus monkeys, selected the fourth container on their left, almost neglecting the one on their right; a behavior which resembles human tendency to count from left to right. These results increased my curiosity of spatial numerical association origin.

In our recent paper published in Science, we demonstrate that newborn domestic chicks show context-dependent spatial-numerical association. Chicks learned to find food behind a panel positioned in the center of an apparatus, and depicting a certain number of elements, for example five. When chicks faced two panels in two new locations, one on their left and one on their right side, both depicting the same number of items; when the number was smaller, 2 versus 2, they chose the panel on their left — when the number was larger, 8 versus 8, they chose the right-hand panel. Intriguingly, chicks trained with 20 elements, during an 8 versus 8 test, circumnavigated to the right-hand panel. Thus spatial numerical association is not absolute — but relative. This implies that from a bird’s perspective, a number is not large nor small per se; but, its magnitude is compared with a reference magnitude; the number experienced during their training, which functions as an anchor onto which future magnitudes are compared. These findings suggest chicks associate number onto space, showing that culture and language are unnecessary for this association to arise.

Academic highlights

2003

Undergraduate degree in experimental psychology. Thesis: Working memory in domestic chick, Gallus gallus: An investigation through the delayed response paradigm. University of Padova, Italy, UNIPD. Supervisor: Prof. Lucia Regolin.

2004

Internship in experimental psychology: Working memory and cerebral lateralization in an animal model: The domestic chick, Gallus gallus. Comparative Cognition Lab, UNIPD.

Internship in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology: Clinical and applied psychology. Interdepartmental Laboratories for Clinical and Applied Psychology, UNIPD.

2005-2008

Doctorate in perception and psychophysics. Completed all the requirements for a Ph.D, publishing a thesis “At the roots of the number competence. Meta-Analysis of the literature on the different animal species and an experimental contribution to the understanding of rudimental numerical abilities in an animal model, the young domestic chick, Gallus gallus. Supervisor: Prof. Lucia Regolin.

2006

Visiting scholar. Studying ordinal numerical competences in Clark’s nutcrackers. Centre for Animal Cognition. University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. Debbie Kelly.

2007

Visiting scholar. Studying lemurs and monkeys for numerical competences and zero-like concept. Primate Cognition Laboratory, Duke University, USA.  Supervisor: Dr. Elizabeth Brannon.

2008-2010

Post-doctoral researcher. Laterality of the number cognition in domestic chicks. CIMEC University of Trento, Italy. Scientific supervisor: Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara.

2010-2011

Post-doctoral researcher. The origin of number cognition: A comparative contribution from the study of the young domestic chicken. Comparative Cognition Lab, UNIPD. Scientific supervisor: Prof. Lucia Regolin.

2012-2013

Post-doctoral researcher. A comparative investigation of left-right asymmetries in spatial numerical processing. Behavioral evidence from an animal model: the domestic chick. Funded by a grant from University of Padova. Comparative Cognition Lab, UNIPD. Scientific supervisor: Prof. Lucia Regolin.

2014

Post-doctoral researcher. Behavioral asymmetries in the processing of space and number. A comparative investigation. Funded by a grant from UNIPD to Professor Regolin. Comparative Cognition Lab, UNIPD.

2015

Post-doctoral researcher. Neural basis for recognition of animate objects. CIMEC, University of Trento. Funding: European Grant PREMESOR to Professor Vallortigara, my scientific supervisor.

2016

Post-doctoral researcher. Attention and social interactions: Neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging studies. Funding support: Scientific Independence of Young Researchers grant to Dr. Luisa Sartori, my scientific supervisor. Neuroscience of Movement Laboratory, UNIPD.

2017

Post-doctoral researcher. Number-space association in the domestic chick. General Psychology Department, UNIPD.

Visiting research fellow. My international research project supported by funding from the German Academic Exchange Service. Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group, Germany. Director: Dr. Martin Fischer.

2018-2021

Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Action fellow. At the roots of Spatial Numerical Association: From behavioral observation to Neural Basis. Funding: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Phase 1: 2018-2020 The association between numbers and space in Rhesus monkeys. Psychology Faculty, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Supervisors; Dr. Elizabeth Brannon, Dr. Michael L. Platt. Phase 2: 2020-2021 The association between numbers and space in day-old domestic chicks. CCL, UNIPD. Supervisor: Prof. Lucia Regolin

latest news

How to make chicks count with a single hemisphere

9 November 2020
We share with other species an intriguing similarity in representing numbers in space, from left to right.
Read more
https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/How-to-make-chicks-count-with-a-single-hemisphere.jpg 650 1300 Daria Lodi https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/numbers_meet_space_400_135.png Daria Lodi2020-11-09 18:07:002020-11-20 18:11:06How to make chicks count with a single hemisphere

When numbers bias chicks’ choices

2 November 2020
Most people who read and write from left to right, orientate numbers in the same direction.
Read more
https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/when-numbers-bias-chicks-choices.jpg 878 1300 Daria Lodi https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/numbers_meet_space_400_135.png Daria Lodi2020-11-02 17:53:002020-11-20 17:53:35When numbers bias chicks’ choices

Newborn chicks associate numbers and space

5 October 2020
In the early 1800s, Sir Francis Galton, a British polymath, showed for the first time that humans describe and think of numbers as being represented on a mental number line oriented from their left to right.
Read more
https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Newborn_chicks_associate_numbers_and_space.jpg 720 1280 Daria Lodi https://www.numbersmeetspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/numbers_meet_space_400_135.png Daria Lodi2020-10-05 17:36:002020-11-20 17:36:48Newborn chicks associate numbers and space
Page 2 of 512345

LATEST POSTERS

  • A face is more than just a number for young domestic chicks. Individual processing of face-like displays supports 3vs.4 discrimination.10 February 2022 - 19:03
  • Middle identification and spatial numerical bias in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)10 February 2022 - 18:58

UNIPD ON FACEBOOK

UNIPD Department of General Psychology

POWERED BY

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 795242

2020 © Copyright - Numbers meet space - Rosa Rugani | credits Creative Web Studio | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy
Scroll to top