In the olfactory literature there is considerable debate about how differences in olfactory receptors across different species map onto variations in perceptual acuity and performance. Although humans have fewer functional olfactory receptors than ...
It seems really weird to assume that rats don’t have linguistic skills given everything we’ve been learning recently about non-human communication, coupled with the fact that they’re extremely social and will not stop chattering away about who knows what. I think a more solitary animal would be better suited to indicating that language and categorization skills may be unrelated, which is unfortunate because they’re much harder to work with.
It seems really weird to assume that rats don’t have linguistic skills given everything we’ve been learning recently about non-human communication, coupled with the fact that they’re extremely social and will not stop chattering away about who knows what. I think a more solitary animal would be better suited to indicating that language and categorization skills may be unrelated, which is unfortunate because they’re much harder to work with.