Jumping spiders can count to three, with categories for one prey, two preys and many preys.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
Judge as of 2019-06-28 against peer-reviewed studies of numerical competence in jumping spiders (e.g. Nelson & Jackson 2012 on Portia africana). True: studies show jumping spiders tell apart one, two and 'many' (three or more) prey items, matching the categories claimed. Mostly true: studies show they tell apart small numbers of prey, but the exact categories differ slightly (e.g. tested only up to two versus three) or the finding is limited to one species. Mixed: the evidence is suggestive but inconsistent. Mostly false: the finding is narrow or preliminary and the claim overstates it, or no study supports these categories (the claim is unproven). False: studies show jumping spiders cannot tell apart prey numbers in this way.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Jumping spiders can count 1, 2, and many Royal Society Te Apārangi · 6 June 2017
“The results of this study can be characterized as Portia counting 1, 2, and many, which is similar to what has been observed with human infants.”
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E2 Jumping spiders can count 1, 2, and many Royal Society Te Apārangi · 6 June 2017
“A change of number between 3 vs. 4 prey or 3 vs. 6 prey did not result in expectancy violation, but expectancy violation was observed for every other change in number.”
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E3 Jumping spiders can count 1, 2, and many Royal Society Te Apārangi · 6 June 2017
“Portia's capacity to represent exact numbers of prey has now featured in a new article in the Royal Society's journal Interface Focus by Fiona Cross and Robert Jackson”
Reasoning
A 2017 Royal Society Te Apārangi summary of a study by Cross and Jackson in the journal Interface Focus says the results "can be characterized as Portia counting 1, 2, and many" (E1, E3). It also says the spiders did not react to changes between 3 and 4 prey or between 3 and 6 prey, but did react to every other change in number (E2). That matches the claimed categories of one, two and many prey. However, the evidence covers only one jumping spider genus, Portia, while the claim speaks of jumping spiders in general. The criteria rate a finding limited to one species as mostly true.
Cite this claim
Yann LeCun, “Jumping spiders can count to three, with categories for one prey, two preys and many preys.” (said 28 June 2019). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_8837b52d7f61, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_8837b52d7f61
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.