{"id":234738,"date":"2026-04-07T02:37:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/analysis-finds-geometric-thinking-may-come-from-wandering-not-a-human-only-math-module"},"modified":"2026-04-07T02:37:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:37:56","slug":"analysis-finds-geometric-thinking-may-come-from-wandering-not-a-human-only-math-module","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/analysis-finds-geometric-thinking-may-come-from-wandering-not-a-human-only-math-module","title":{"rendered":"Analysis finds geometric thinking may come from wandering, not a human-only math module"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/analysis-finds-geometric-thinking-may-come-from-wandering-not-a-human-only-math-module2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Debates over how geometry is understood and learned date back at least to the days of Plato, with more recent scholars concluding that only humans possess the foundations of this understanding. However, a new analysis by New York University psychology professor Moira Dillon concludes that geometry\u2019s foundations are shared by humans and a variety of other animals\u2014from rats to chickens to fish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur ability to think geometrically may not come from a built-in, uniquely human \u2018math module\u2019 in the brain, but rather from the same cognitive systems that help humans, as well as animals, find their way home,\u201d explains Dillon, whose <a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S1364661326000057\" target=\"_blank\">work<\/a> appears in the journal <i>Trends in Cognitive Sciences<\/i>. \u201cPut another way, our understanding of geometry may very well come from wandering rather than from worksheets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Plato and, later, Descartes and Kant all debated the origins of geometry and the role of cognition in its beginnings, only in the latter half of the 20th century did scientists start testing how it is learned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Debates over how geometry is understood and learned date back at least to the days of Plato, with more recent scholars concluding that only humans possess the foundations of this understanding. However, a new analysis by New York University psychology professor Moira Dillon concludes that geometry\u2019s foundations are shared by humans and a variety of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2229,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-habitats","category-mathematics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}