Recent news stories have mistakenly implied that animals can understand mathematics better than humans. Participants in a study were asked to state a choice of one of three doors, behind one of which there was a prize. Then the researcher opened one of the other two doors, revealing that there was no prize behind it. Asked if they would like to change their choice, most chose not to change. Switching to the remaining closed door would have increased their chance of winning. Even after playing the game many times, which allowed them to observe that they would win more often if they switched, most did not do so. When pigeons played a similar game, after a few attempts they switched every time. So the pigeons learnt from experience, whereas the people overanalysed and became confused.