1
|
Bánszegi O, Rosetti M, Olivares UJ, Szenczi P. Response to geometrical visual illusions in non-human animals: a meta-analysis. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20240414. [PMID: 38889782 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0414] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2023] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Visual illusions have been studied in many non-human species, spanning a wide range of biological and methodological variables. While early reviews have proved useful in providing an overview of the field, they have not been accompanied by quantitative analysis to systematically evaluate the contribution of biological and methodological moderators on the proportion of illusory choice. In the current meta-analytical study, we confirm that geometrical visual illusion perception is a general phenomenon among non-human animals. Additionally, we found that studies testing birds report stronger illusion perception compared to other classes, as do those on animals with lateral-positioned eyes compared to animals with forward-facing eyes. In terms of methodological choices, we found a positive correlation between the number of trials during training or testing and the effect sizes, while studies with larger samples report smaller effect sizes. Despite studies that trained animals with artificial stimuli showing larger effect sizes compared with those using spontaneous testing with naturalistic stimuli, like food, we found more recent studies prefer spontaneous choice over training. We discuss the challenges and bottlenecks in this area of study, which, if addressed, could lead to more successful advances in the future.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Oxána Bánszegi
- Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Marcos Rosetti
- Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
- Unidad Psicopatología y Desarrollo, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Uriel J Olivares
- Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Péter Szenczi
- Unidad Psicopatología y Desarrollo, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Ciudad de México, Mexico
- Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías, Ciudad de México, Mexico
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Gatto E, Loukola OJ, Petrazzini MEM, Agrillo C, Cutini S. Illusional Perspective across Humans and Bees. Vision (Basel) 2022; 6:28. [PMID: 35737416 PMCID: PMC9231007 DOI: 10.3390/vision6020028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2022] [Revised: 05/20/2022] [Accepted: 05/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
For two centuries, visual illusions have attracted the attention of neurobiologists and comparative psychologists, given the possibility of investigating the complexity of perceptual mechanisms by using relatively simple patterns. Animal models, such as primates, birds, and fish, have played a crucial role in understanding the physiological circuits involved in the susceptibility of visual illusions. However, the comprehension of such mechanisms is still a matter of debate. Despite their different neural architectures, recent studies have shown that some arthropods, primarily Hymenoptera and Diptera, experience illusions similar to those humans do, suggesting that perceptual mechanisms are evolutionarily conserved among species. Here, we review the current state of illusory perception in bees. First, we introduce bees' visual system and speculate which areas might make them susceptible to illusory scenes. Second, we review the current state of knowledge on misperception in bees (Apidae), focusing on the visual stimuli used in the literature. Finally, we discuss important aspects to be considered before claiming that a species shows higher cognitive ability while equally supporting alternative hypotheses. This growing evidence provides insights into the evolutionary origin of visual mechanisms across species.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Elia Gatto
- Department of Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Sciences, University of Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
- Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy
| | - Olli J. Loukola
- Ecology and Genetics Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland;
| | | | - Christian Agrillo
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy; (M.E.M.P.); (C.A.)
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy;
| | - Simone Cutini
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy;
- Padua Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, 35129 Padova, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Context specificity of latent inhibition in the snail Cornu aspersum. Anim Cogn 2022; 25:1517-1526. [PMID: 35579765 PMCID: PMC9652167 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01632-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2022] [Revised: 04/20/2022] [Accepted: 04/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
The present study was conducted to assess the context specificity of latent inhibition (LI) in the snail Cornu aspersum, using the appetitive Pavlovian Conditioning procedure of tentacle lowering. Snails experienced an odorous conditioned stimulus (CS) without any consequence before being conditioned with food. The conditioned stimulus preexposure occurred in the same context than the conditioning and the test context or in the different context. The study was performed in two replicas in which the photoperiod was defined by level of illumination and time of day (circadian replica) or was defined only by light (light replica). Both replicas showed that the CS preexposure in the same context as conditioning produced a delay in the acquisition of the conditioned response (CR). However, when the CS preexposure took place in a different context than the conditioning context, an equivalent level of CR as that observed in controls without preexposition to CS was shown. These results are congruent with context specificity of LI and they provide the first evidence of this phenomenon in terrestrial mollusks. Learning processes and theories involved in this phenomenon are also debated in the paper.
Collapse
|
4
|
Howard SR, Greentree J, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Numerosity Categorization by Parity in an Insect and Simple Neural Network. Front Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.805385] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
A frequent question as technology improves and becomes increasingly complex, is how we enable technological solutions and models inspired by biological systems. Creating technology based on humans is challenging and costly as human brains and cognition are complex. The honeybee has emerged as a valuable comparative model which exhibits some cognitive-like behaviors. The relative simplicity of the bee brain compared to large mammalian brains enables learning tasks, such as categorization, that can be mimicked by simple neural networks. Categorization of abstract concepts can be essential to how we understand complex information. Odd and even numerical processing is known as a parity task in human mathematical representations, but there appears to be a complete absence of research exploring parity processing in non-human animals. We show that free-flying honeybees can visually acquire the capacity to differentiate between odd and even quantities of 1–10 geometric elements and extrapolate this categorization to the novel numerosities of 11 and 12, revealing that such categorization is accessible to a comparatively simple system. We use this information to construct a neural network consisting of five neurons that can reliably categorize odd and even numerosities up to 40 elements. While the simple neural network is not directly based on the biology of the honeybee brain, it was created to determine if simple systems can replicate the parity categorization results we observed in honeybees. This study thus demonstrates that a task, previously only shown in humans, is accessible to a brain with a comparatively small numbers of neurons. We discuss the possible mechanisms or learning processes allowing bees to perform this categorization task, which range from numeric explanations, such as counting, to pairing elements and memorization of stimuli or patterns. The findings should encourage further testing of parity processing in a wider variety of animals to inform on its potential biological roots, evolutionary drivers, and potential technology innovations for concept processing.
Collapse
|
5
|
Howard SR, Dyer AG, Garcia JE, Giurfa M, Reser DH, Rosa MGP, Avarguès-Weber A. Naïve and Experienced Honeybee Foragers Learn Normally Configured Flowers More Easily Than Non-configured or Highly Contrasted Flowers. Front Ecol Evol 2021. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2021.662336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Angiosperms have evolved to attract and/or deter specific pollinators. Flowers provide signals and cues such as scent, colour, size, pattern, and shape, which allow certain pollinators to more easily find and visit the same type of flower. Over evolutionary time, bees and angiosperms have co-evolved resulting in flowers being more attractive to bee vision and preferences, and allowing bees to recognise specific flower traits to make decisions on where to forage. Here we tested whether bees are instinctively tuned to process flower shape by training both flower-experienced and flower-naïve honeybee foragers to discriminate between pictures of two different flower species when images were either normally configured flowers or flowers which were scrambled in terms of spatial configuration. We also tested whether increasing picture contrast, to make flower features more salient, would improve or impair performance. We used four flower conditions: (i) normally configured greyscale flower pictures, (ii) scrambled flower configurations, (iii) high contrast normally configured flowers, and (iv) asymmetrically scrambled flowers. While all flower pictures contained very similar spatial information, both experienced and naïve bees were better able to learn to discriminate between normally configured flowers than between any of the modified versions. Our results suggest that a specialisation in flower recognition in bees is due to a combination of hard-wired neural circuitry and experience-dependent factors.
Collapse
|
6
|
Different mechanisms underlie implicit visual statistical learning in honey bees and humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:25923-25934. [PMID: 32989162 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1919387117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability of developing complex internal representations of the environment is considered a crucial antecedent to the emergence of humans' higher cognitive functions. Yet it is an open question whether there is any fundamental difference in how humans and other good visual learner species naturally encode aspects of novel visual scenes. Using the same modified visual statistical learning paradigm and multielement stimuli, we investigated how human adults and honey bees (Apis mellifera) encode spontaneously, without dedicated training, various statistical properties of novel visual scenes. We found that, similarly to humans, honey bees automatically develop a complex internal representation of their visual environment that evolves with accumulation of new evidence even without a targeted reinforcement. In particular, with more experience, they shift from being sensitive to statistics of only elemental features of the scenes to relying on co-occurrence frequencies of elements while losing their sensitivity to elemental frequencies, but they never encode automatically the predictivity of elements. In contrast, humans involuntarily develop an internal representation that includes single-element and co-occurrence statistics, as well as information about the predictivity between elements. Importantly, capturing human visual learning results requires a probabilistic chunk-learning model, whereas a simple fragment-based memory-trace model that counts occurrence summary statistics is sufficient to replicate honey bees' learning behavior. Thus, humans' sophisticated encoding of sensory stimuli that provides intrinsic sensitivity to predictive information might be one of the fundamental prerequisites of developing higher cognitive abilities.
Collapse
|
7
|
Pigeons (Columba livia) integrate visual motion using the vector average rule: effect of viewing distance. Anim Cogn 2020; 23:819-825. [DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01376-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2020] [Revised: 03/21/2020] [Accepted: 03/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
|
8
|
Howard SR, Schramme J, Garcia JE, Ng L, Avarguès-Weber A, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Spontaneous quantity discrimination of artificial flowers by foraging honeybees. J Exp Biol 2020; 223:223/9/jeb223610. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.223610] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2020] [Accepted: 04/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Many animals need to process numerical and quantity information in order to survive. Spontaneous quantity discrimination allows differentiation between two or more quantities without reinforcement or prior training on any numerical task. It is useful for assessing food resources, aggressive interactions, predator avoidance and prey choice. Honeybees have previously demonstrated landmark counting, quantity matching, use of numerical rules, quantity discrimination and arithmetic, but have not been tested for spontaneous quantity discrimination. In bees, spontaneous quantity discrimination could be useful when assessing the quantity of flowers available in a patch and thus maximizing foraging efficiency. In the current study, we assessed the spontaneous quantity discrimination behaviour of honeybees. Bees were trained to associate a single yellow artificial flower with sucrose. Bees were then tested for their ability to discriminate between 13 different quantity comparisons of artificial flowers (numeric ratio range: 0.08–0.8). Bees significantly preferred the higher quantity only in comparisons where ‘1’ was the lower quantity and where there was a sufficient magnitudinal distance between quantities (e.g. 1 versus 12, 1 versus 4, and 1 versus 3 but not 1 versus 2). Our results suggest a possible evolutionary benefit to choosing a foraging patch with a higher quantity of flowers when resources are scarce.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R. Howard
- Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse 31000, France
| | - Jürgen Schramme
- Institute of Developmental Biology and Neurobiology (iDN), Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz 55122, Germany
| | - Jair E. Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Leslie Ng
- School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3052, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse 31000, France
| | - Andrew D. Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Adrian G. Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
- Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
Howard SR, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Reply to comment on Howard et al. (2019): 'Nothing to dance about: unclear evidence for symbolic representations and numerical competence in honeybees'. Proc Biol Sci 2020; 287:20200095. [PMID: 32290798 PMCID: PMC7211442 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2020] [Accepted: 03/20/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R. Howard
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Laboratory, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Jair E. Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Laboratory, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Andrew D. Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Adrian G. Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Laboratory, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Howard SR, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Achieving arithmetic learning in honeybees and examining how individuals learn. Commun Integr Biol 2019; 12:166-170. [PMID: 31666918 PMCID: PMC6802933 DOI: 10.1080/19420889.2019.1678452] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2019] [Accepted: 09/20/2019] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
In recent years honeybees have demonstrated intriguing numerical capacities, leading to the recent discovery of their ability to perform simple arithmetic by learning to add or subtract ‘one’ using symbolic representations of operators. When training an insect with a miniature brain containing less than one million neurons to understand a conceptual rule, the procedure is of vital importance. We explain in detail the controls and process of designing an experiment to test for complex behaviors in a relatively simple brained animal. Furthermore, we will discuss the finding that individual honeybees do not demonstrate a consistent learning scenario when trained to perform the same tasks, rather they appear to acquire arithmetic rules through individual processes.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R Howard
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CRCA), Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France.,Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CRCA), Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Jair E Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Andrew D Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Adrian G Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.,Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Howard SR, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees. J Exp Biol 2019; 222:222/19/jeb205658. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.205658] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2019] [Accepted: 09/02/2019] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Animals including humans, fish and honeybees have demonstrated a quantity discrimination threshold at four objects, often known as subitizing elements. Discrimination between numerosities at or above the subitizing range is considered a complex capacity. In the current study, we trained and tested two groups of bees on their ability to differentiate between quantities (4 versus 5 through to 4 versus 8) when trained with different conditioning procedures. Bees trained with appetitive (reward) differential conditioning demonstrated no significant learning of this task, and limited discrimination above the subitizing range. In contrast, bees trained using appetitive–aversive (reward–aversion) differential conditioning demonstrated significant learning and subsequent discrimination of all tested comparisons from 4 versus 5 to 4 versus 8. Our results show conditioning procedure is vital to performance on numerically challenging tasks, and may inform future research on numerical abilities in other animals.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R. Howard
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, 31400 Toulouse, France
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, 31400 Toulouse, France
| | - Jair E. Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Andrew D. Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
| | - Adrian G. Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
- Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
12
|
Qadri MAJ, Cook RG. Perception of Ebbinghaus–Titchener stimuli in starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Anim Cogn 2019; 22:973-989. [PMID: 31321621 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-019-01289-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2019] [Revised: 06/14/2019] [Accepted: 06/24/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
|
13
|
Linear numerosity illusions in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella), rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), and humans (Homo sapiens). Anim Cogn 2019; 22:883-895. [PMID: 31256340 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-019-01288-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2018] [Revised: 06/02/2019] [Accepted: 06/24/2019] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Numerosity illusions emerge when the stimuli in one set are overestimated or underestimated relative to the number (or quantity) of stimuli in another set. In the case of multi-item arrays, individual items that form a better Gestalt are more readily grouped, leading to overestimation by human adults and children. As an example, the Solitaire illusion emerges when dots forming a central cluster (cross-pattern) are overestimated relative to the same number of dots on the periphery of the array. Although this illusion is robustly experienced by human adults, previous studies have produced weaker illusory results for young children, chimpanzees, rhesus macaques, capuchin monkeys, and guppies. In the current study, we presented nonhuman primates with other linear arrangements of stimuli from Frith and Frith's (Percept Psychoph 11:409-410, 1972) original paper with human participants that included the Solitaire illusion. Capuchin monkeys, rhesus macaques, and human adults learned to quantify black and white dots that were presented within intermingled arrays, responding on the basis of the more numerous dot colors. Humans perceived the various illusions similar to the original findings of Frith and Frith (1972), validating the current comparative design; however, there was no evidence of illusory susceptibility in either species of monkey. These results are considered in light of illusion susceptibility among primates as well as considering the role of numerical discrimination abilities and perceptual processing mode on illusion emergence.
Collapse
|
14
|
Howard SR, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Numerical cognition in honeybees enables addition and subtraction. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2019; 5:eaav0961. [PMID: 30775440 PMCID: PMC6365119 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aav0961] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2018] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
Many animals understand numbers at a basic level for use in essential tasks such as foraging, shoaling, and resource management. However, complex arithmetic operations, such as addition and subtraction, using symbols and/or labeling have only been demonstrated in a limited number of nonhuman vertebrates. We show that honeybees, with a miniature brain, can learn to use blue and yellow as symbolic representations for addition or subtraction. In a free-flying environment, individual bees used this information to solve unfamiliar problems involving adding or subtracting one element from a group of elements. This display of numerosity requires bees to acquire long-term rules and use short-term working memory. Given that honeybees and humans are separated by over 400 million years of evolution, our findings suggest that advanced numerical cognition may be more accessible to nonhuman animals than previously suspected.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R. Howard
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CRCA), Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Jair E. Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Andrew D. Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Adrian G. Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Howard SR, Shrestha M, Schramme J, Garcia JE, Avarguès-Weber A, Greentree AD, Dyer AG. Honeybees prefer novel insect-pollinated flower shapes over bird-pollinated flower shapes. Curr Zool 2018; 65:457-465. [PMID: 31413718 PMCID: PMC6688580 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoy095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2018] [Accepted: 12/04/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Plant–pollinator interactions have a fundamental influence on flower evolution. Flower color signals are frequently tuned to the visual capabilities of important pollinators such as either bees or birds, but far less is known about whether flower shape influences the choices of pollinators. We tested European honeybee Apis mellifera preferences using novel achromatic (gray-scale) images of 12 insect-pollinated and 12 bird-pollinated native Australian flowers in Germany; thus, avoiding influences of color, odor, or prior experience. Independent bees were tested with a number of parameterized images specifically designed to assess preferences for size, shape, brightness, or the number of flower-like shapes present in an image. We show that honeybees have a preference for visiting images of insect-pollinated flowers and such a preference is most-likely mediated by holistic information rather than by individual image parameters. Our results indicate angiosperms have evolved flower shapes which influence the choice behavior of important pollinators, and thus suggest spatial achromatic flower properties are an important part of visual signaling for plant–pollinator interactions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R Howard
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
| | - Mani Shrestha
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia.,Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia
| | - Juergen Schramme
- Institute of Developmental Biology and Neurobiology (iDn), Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz 55122, Germany
| | - Jair E Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse 31400, France
| | - Andrew D Greentree
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
| | - Adrian G Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia.,Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
16
|
Avarguès-Weber A, d'Amaro D, Metzler M, Finke V, Baracchi D, Dyer AG. Does Holistic Processing Require a Large Brain? Insights From Honeybees and Wasps in Fine Visual Recognition Tasks. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1313. [PMID: 30108535 PMCID: PMC6079261 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The expertise of humans for recognizing faces is largely based on holistic processing mechanism, a sophisticated cognitive process that develops with visual experience. The various visual features of a face are thus glued together and treated by the brain as a unique stimulus, facilitating robust recognition. Holistic processing is known to facilitate fine discrimination of highly similar visual stimuli, and involves specialized brain areas in humans and other primates. Although holistic processing is most typically employed with face stimuli, subjects can also learn to apply similar image analysis mechanisms when gaining expertise in discriminating novel visual objects, like becoming experts in recognizing birds or cars. Here, we ask if holistic processing with expertise might be a mechanism employed by the comparatively miniature brains of insects. We thus test whether honeybees (Apis mellifera) and/or wasps (Vespula vulgaris) can use holistic-like processing with experience to recognize images of human faces, or Navon-like parameterized-stimuli. These insect species are excellent visual learners and have previously shown ability to discriminate human face stimuli using configural type processing. Freely flying bees and wasps were consequently confronted with classical tests for holistic processing, the part-whole effect and the composite-face effect. Both species could learn similar faces from a standard face recognition test used for humans, and their performance in transfer tests was consistent with holistic processing as defined for studies on humans. Tests with parameterized stimuli also revealed a capacity of honeybees, but not wasps, to process complex visual information in a holistic way, suggesting that such sophisticated visual processing may be far more spread within the animal kingdom than previously thought, although may depend on ecological constraints.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Daniele d'Amaro
- Institut für Zoologie III (Neurobiologie), Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany
| | - Marita Metzler
- Department of Anatomy II, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Valerie Finke
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - David Baracchi
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Adrian G Dyer
- School of Media and Communication, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.,Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
17
|
Howard SR, Avarguès-Weber A, Garcia JE, Stuart-Fox D, Dyer AG. Perception of contextual size illusions by honeybees in restricted and unrestricted viewing conditions. Proc Biol Sci 2018; 284:rspb.2017.2278. [PMID: 29167368 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2017] [Accepted: 10/23/2017] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
How different visual systems process images and make perceptual errors can inform us about cognitive and visual processes. One of the strongest geometric errors in perception is a misperception of size depending on the size of surrounding objects, known as the Ebbinghaus or Titchener illusion. The ability to perceive the Ebbinghaus illusion appears to vary dramatically among vertebrate species, and even populations, but this may depend on whether the viewing distance is restricted. We tested whether honeybees perceive contextual size illusions, and whether errors in perception of size differed under restricted and unrestricted viewing conditions. When the viewing distance was unrestricted, there was an effect of context on size perception and thus, similar to humans, honeybees perceived contrast size illusions. However, when the viewing distance was restricted, bees were able to judge absolute size accurately and did not succumb to visual illusions, despite differing contextual information. Our results show that accurate size perception depends on viewing conditions, and thus may explain the wide variation in previously reported findings across species. These results provide insight into the evolution of visual mechanisms across vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, and suggest convergent evolution of a visual processing solution.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Scarlett R Howard
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia .,School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Aurore Avarguès-Weber
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
| | - Jair E Garcia
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
| | - Devi Stuart-Fox
- School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
| | - Adrian G Dyer
- Bio-inspired Digital Sensing (BIDS) Lab, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.,Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
| |
Collapse
|