Knowing this, we may be able to enhance math training.

Our studies show these abilities are universal, and they develop in the absence of instruction. You don't need to take a class in geometry, and you don't need to learn from a teacher what a right triangle is in order to show this sensitivity.

I think it's really fascinating that geometry is so difficult. My guess is it's difficult because it focuses on proofs.

The experiments of the infants and the monkeys, I think, make it extremely likely that these abilities are inborn.

Rhesus monkeys as well as human adults and older children living in a remote Amazon village have been given comparison and addition tasks using arrays of dots, and they show the same abilities we find in 5-year-old Boston children.

What our study shows is that children have a fundamental understanding of addition and of numbers and we hope to harness that ability to enhance mathematic instruction.