Several studies have suggested that vertebrate and invertebrate species may possess a number sense, i.e. an ability to process in a non-symbolic and non-verbal way the numerousness of a set of items. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the presence of other non-numerical continuous physical variables, which vary along with numerosity (i.e., any change in the number of visual physical elements in a set naturally involves a related change in visual features such as area, density, contour length and convex hull of the stimulus). It is therefore necessary to control and manipulate the continuous physical information when investigating the ability of humans and other animals to perceive numerousness. During decades of research, different methods have been implemented in order to address this issue, which has implications for experiment replicability and inter-species comparisons, since no general standardized procedure is currently being used. Here we present the ‘Generation of Numerical Elements Images Software’ (GeNEsIS) for the creation of non-symbolic numerical arrays in a standardized and user-friendly environment. The main aim of this tool is to provide researchers in the field of numerical cognition a manageable and precise instrument to produce visual numerical arrays controlled for all the continuous variables. Additionally, we implemented the ability to actively guide stimuli presentation during habituation/dishabituation and dual-choice comparison tasks used in human and comparative research.

几项研究表明，脊椎动物和无脊椎动物物种可能具有数感，即以非符号和非语言方式处理一组项目的数量的能力。然而，这一假设受到了其他非数值连续物理变量的挑战，这些变量随数量而变化（即，集合中视觉物理元素数量的任何变化自然会涉及视觉特征的相关变化，例如面积，密度，轮廓长度和刺激的凸包）。因此，在研究人类和其他动物感知数量的能力时，有必要控制和操纵连续的物理信息。在数十年的研究中，已经实施了不同的方法来解决这个问题，这对实验可复制性和物种间比较有影响，因为目前没有使用通用的标准化程序。在这里，我们介绍了“生成数值元素图像软件”（GeNEsIS），用于在标准化和用户友好的环境中创建非符号数值数组。该工具的主要目的是为数值认知领域的研究人员提供一种可管理且精确的工具，以生成受所有连续变量控制的视觉数值阵列。此外，我们实现了在人类和比较研究中使用的习惯化/去习惯化和双重选择比较任务期间主动引导刺激呈现的能力。该工具的主要目的是为数值认知领域的研究人员提供一种可管理且精确的工具，以生成受所有连续变量控制的视觉数值阵列。此外，我们实现了在人类和比较研究中使用的习惯化/去习惯化和双重选择比较任务期间主动引导刺激呈现的能力。该工具的主要目的是为数值认知领域的研究人员提供一种可管理且精确的工具，以生成受所有连续变量控制的视觉数值阵列。此外，我们实现了在人类和比较研究中使用的习惯化/去习惯化和双重选择比较任务期间主动引导刺激呈现的能力。