Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Further experiments with color

Couvillon, P. A.; Bitterman, M. E.

doi:10.3758/bf03197971

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…However, in free-flying bees the reward duration and the reward amount impact the bees' correct choices for a rewarded color stimulus shortly after learning (Menzel 1968;Menzel and Erber 1972;Couvillon et al 1991;Couvillon and Bitterman 1993). Moreover, in free-flying bees the reward amount affects a memory's resistance to extinction Bitterman 1988, 1989).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duration of the unconditioned stimulus in appetitive conditioning of honeybees differentially impacts learning, long-term memory strength, and the underlying protein synthesis

et al. 2014

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This study examines the role of stimulus duration in learning and memory formation of honeybees (Apis mellifera). In classical appetitive conditioning honeybees learn the association between an initially neutral, conditioned stimulus (CS) and the occurrence of a meaningful stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus (US). Thereby the CS becomes a predictor for the US eliciting a conditioned response (CR). Here we study the role of US duration in classical conditioning by examining honeybees conditioned with different US durations. We quantify the CR during acquisition, memory retention, and extinction of the early long-term memory (eLTM), and examine the molecular mechanisms of eLTM by interfering with protein synthesis. We find that the US duration affects neither the probability nor the strength of the CR during acquisition, eLTM retention, and extinction 24 h after conditioning. However, we find that the resistance to extinction 24 h after conditioning is susceptible to protein synthesis inhibition depending on the US duration. We conclude that the US duration does not affect the predictability of the US but modulates the protein synthesis underlying the eLTM's strength. Thus, the US duration differentially impacts learning, eLTM strength, and its underlying protein synthesis.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duration of the unconditioned stimulus in appetitive conditioning of honeybees differentially impacts learning, long-term memory strength, and the underlying protein synthesis

et al. 2014

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“…No bee other than a test bee was ever rewarded on a blue or yellow artificial flower, and each test bee was marked with a small dot of paint on its notum whilst being trained in order to avoid using the same bee twice. Couvillon and Bitterman, using an array of blue and yellow flowers, found that reward quantity had an effect on flower choice (Couvillon and Bitterman, 1993). It has been argued, however, that pre-training on the two colours and 'forced' sampling between these two flower types [e.g.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been argued, however, that pre-training on the two colours and 'forced' sampling between these two flower types [e.g. bees were trained to both colours in Couvillon and Bitterman (Couvillon and Bitterman, 1993)] were responsible for the lack of constancy (Hill et al, 1997). To avoid this, our test bees were allowed to freely choose either colour.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been reported that honey bee foragers fail to adjust the degree of constancy according to the energetic value of flowers in blue/yellow dimorphic patches (Wells and Wells, 1983;Wells and Wells, 1984;Wells and Wells, 1986;Hill et al, 1997;Hill et al, 2001;Sanderson et al, 2006) (but see Couvillon and Bitterman, 1993). Rather than choosing the flower colour that is most rewarding, foragers quickly became constant to one or the other colour ('spontaneous constancy') irrespective of the reward, suggesting that behavioural constraints are responsible for constancy (Wells and Wells, 1983;Wells and Wells, 1984;Wells and Wells, 1986;Hill et al, 1997;Hill et al, 2001; Sanderson et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flower constancy in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera) depends on ecologically realistic rewards

Grüter

Moore

Firmin

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYAs first described by Aristotle, honey bee (Apis mellifera) workers show a strong tendency to visit flowers of only one type during a foraging trip. It is known that workers rapidly learn a flower colour when rewarded with artificial nectar (sucrose solution). However, some previous studies report that the degree of constancy after training is unaffected by reward quantity and quality when bees are tested in an array of artificial flowers of two easily distinguished colours, such as blue and yellow. One possible reason for this surprising result is that large reward volumes were compared. This is likely to mask the abilities of foragers to make adaptive decisions under more realistic conditions. To test this possibility, we offered untrained honey bee workers ecologically relevant rewards (0.5, 1 or 2l of 0.5 or 1moll -1 sucrose solution) on one or two consecutive yellow or blue artificial flowers and then recorded which flowers the bees subsequently landed on in an array of 40 empty flowers. The results showed that an increase in all three factors (volume, concentration and number of rewards) significantly increased constancy (proportion of visits to flowers of the trained colour) and persistence (number of flowers visited) during the foraging bout. Constancy for the least rewarding situation was 75.9% compared with 98.6% for the most rewarding situation. These results clearly show that honey bee workers do become more constant to blue or yellow with increasing nectar rewards, provided that the rewards used are ecologically realistic. As the most rewarding conditions led to nearly 100% constancy, further reward increases during training would not have been able to further increase constancy. This explains why previous studies comparing large rewards found no effect of reward on constancy.

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“…One key fact is that 14 of the 16 animals began with a strong preference for one of the two outside targets, which was in most cases the left. Another is the contiguity effect that then took them primarily to M. Yet another is that the reward for the third choice was much larger than for the first two choicesenough sucrose being given to fill the subject and so end the visit-which on O-M trials would increase the associative strength of the alternative 0 target relative to that of M; it has been shown with just such targets that associative strength approaches an asymptotic value which increases with amount of reward (Couvillon & Bitterman, 1993). To the extent that M continued to be somewhat preferred over the alternative 0 as the second choice, the contiguity effect must have been strong enough to compensate for a difference in associative strength favoring the TRIALS Figure 3.…”

Section: Short-term Memory In Honeybees 371mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of honeybees in analogues of the rodent radial maze

Burmeister

Couvillon

Bitterman

1995

Animal Learning & Behavior

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The performance of individual honeybees pretrained to forage at a laboratory window was studied in three rudimentary analogues of the radial maze designed for the study of short-term spatial memory in rats. A linear arrangement of three targets was used in Experiment 1, a triangular arrangement of three targets in Experiment 2, and a rectangular arrangement of four targets in Experiment 3, with reward only for the first response to each of the targets presented on any given trial. Several systematic patterns of responding were observed, with no indication that the choices made by the animals were influenced by memory of targets recently visited.Trace conditioning of both color and odor has been found in honeybees (Menzel, 1968;Menzel & Bitterman, 1983), but discriminative control oftheir behavior by transient residual effects of prior stimuli, commonly referred to as control by "short-term memory" or "working memory," has yet to be demonstrated convincingly. In a recent experiment, Greggers and Menzel (1993) trained foragers with four feeders that yielded sucrose solution at different rates offlow. The authors were unable to model the choices of their animals on the simple assumption that the associative strength of each feeder approached an asymptotic value determined by the flow-rate, but found it useful to think in terms of two "memories," one "feeder specific" and the other "feeder independent"-the associative strength of the entire "patch." The patch memory was characterized as "short-term working memory" and the feeder-specific memory as "long-term reference memory"-a distinction difficult to understand, given that both memories were assumed to be "updated" by reward according to equations of the same form and independently of time. Exactly the opposite usage would have been no less meaningful. Control of performance by short-term memory in the conventional sense was reported more recently by Brown and Demas (1994), who used an analogue ofthe radial maze designed for rats (Olton & Samuelson, 1976). Confronted on each trial with an array ofsix baited targets, honeybees showed a significantly greater-thanchance tendency to avoid targets chosen earlier on the trial, but the effect was smaIl and the method (for reasons subThis research was supported by Grant IBN-9308132 from the National Science Foundation. The participation ofS.S. was made possible by a grant from the New College Foundation. We are grateful to Lisa Travillion for pilot data, and to Michael F. Brown both for a preprint of his paper with Demas (Brown & Demas, 1994) and for information about their work that is not given in the paper. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to M. E. Bitterman, Bekesy Laboratory of Neurobiology, 1993 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822 (e-mail: jeftb@ahi.pbrc.hawaii.edu).-r-Accepted by previous editor; Vincent M. LoLordo sequently to be considered) highly unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, the line of investigation begun by Brown and Demas is worth pursuing further.The key to the impressive performanc...

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Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Further experiments with color

Cited by 13 publications

References 16 publications

Duration of the unconditioned stimulus in appetitive conditioning of honeybees differentially impacts learning, long-term memory strength, and the underlying protein synthesis

Duration of the unconditioned stimulus in appetitive conditioning of honeybees differentially impacts learning, long-term memory strength, and the underlying protein synthesis

Flower constancy in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera) depends on ecologically realistic rewards

Performance of honeybees in analogues of the rodent radial maze

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