Transitive inference (TI) involves using known relationships to deduce unknown ones (for example, using A > B and B > C to infer A > C), and is thus essential to logical reasoning.
First described as a developmental milestone in children1, TI has since been reported in nonhuman primates2, 3, 4, rats5, 6 and birds7, 8, 9, 10.
This is the counterintuitive finding of 4 physicists at Brigham Young University’s Splash Lab, which has published work on how schools of fish move in perfect coordination and the physics of skipping stones across a pond. In 2013, these four “wizz kids” used their understanding of fluid mechanics to study splashback.