Guiraud, M.-G., MaBouDi, H. orcid.org/0000-0002-7612-6465, Woodgate, J. et al. (4 more authors) (2025) How bumblebees manage conflicting information seen on arrival and departure from flowers. Animal Cognition, 28 (1). 11. ISSN 1435-9448
Abstract
Bees are flexible and adaptive learners, capable of learning stimuli seen on arrival and at departure from flowers where they have fed. This gives bees the potential to learn all information associated with a feeding event, but it also presents the challenge of managing information that is irrelevant, inconsistent, or conflicting. Here, we examined how presenting bumblebees with conflicting visual information before and after feeding influenced their learning rate and what they learned. Bees were trained to feeder stations mounted in front of a computer monitor. Visual stimuli were displayed behind each feeder station on the monitor. Positively reinforced stimuli (CS +) marked feeders offering sucrose solution. Negatively reinforced stimuli (CS−) marked feeders offering quinine solution. While alighted at the feeder station the stimuli were likely not visible to the bee. The “constant stimulus” training group saw the same stimulus throughout. For the “switched stimulus” training group, the CS + changed to the CS− during feeding. Learning was slower in the “switched stimulus” training group compared to the constant stimulus” group, but the training groups did not differ in their learning performance or the extent to which they generalised their learning. The information conflict in the “switched stimulus” group did not interfere with what had been learned. Differences between the “switched” and “constant stimulus” groups were greater for bees trained on a horizontal CS + than a vertical CS + suggesting bees differ in their processing of vertically and horizontally oriented stimuli. We discuss how bumblebees might resolve this type of information conflict so effectively, drawing on the known neurobiology of their visual learning system.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Active vision; Bombus terrestris; Insect cognition; Cognitive visual engram; Visual learning |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/P006094/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 11 Feb 2025 12:42 |
Last Modified: | 13 Feb 2025 11:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10071-024-01926-x |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223124 |