Numerical cognition in honeybees enables addition and subtraction

Howard, Scarlett R.; Avarguès‐Weber, Aurore; Garcia, Jair E.; Greentree, Andrew D.; Dyer, Adrian G.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aav0961

Cited by 111 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…We also recently trained bees to learn to add or subtract 1 element from an array of elements consisting of 1 to 5 elements. Bees demonstrated significant success in novel problems and thus demonstrated simple arithmetic abilities when trained with appetitive-aversive differential conditioning (Howard et al, 2019a). Honeybees have also demonstrated the capacity to learn to match signs (abstract symbols) with quantities when trained with appetitive-aversive differential conditioning (Howard et al, 2019b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees

Howard

Avarguès‐Weber

Garcia

et al. 2019

Journal of Experimental Biology

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees

Howard

Avarguès‐Weber

Garcia

et al. 2019

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…As for the invertebrates, experiments made on spiders, deprived of some of their prey larders, suggest that these animals may be able to assess the number of preys lacking, and might thus have some numerosity concept (Rodriguez, Briceno, Briceno-Aguilar, & Höbel, 2015), what allows presuming some potential ability in adding and subtracting elements. As for social hymenoptera, bees have been reported to be able to learn adding as well as subtracting one element (blue as well as yellow respectively) to or from 1-5 presented ones (Howard, Avarguès-Weber, Garcia, Greentree, & Dyer, 2019). Being rewarded when giving the correct response (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ants Fail to Add Numbers of Same Elements Seen Consecutively

Cammaerts¹,

Cammaerts²

2019

IJB

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The workers of the ant Myrmica sabuleti have been shown to be able to distinguish different numbers of elements and to be able to add them if seen side by side, at the same time. They have thus a concrete concept of numbers and of adding. It remained to know if they have an abstract mathematical concept of numbers and of their addition. For tempting answering this question, we presented, to M. sabuleti workers, two numbers of elements (circles) not placed side by side but making an angle, the ants having thus to move for seeing the one then the other of the numbers of elements. After 3, 6, 9 and 12 of such training days, the ants were tested in front of the two numbers of elements as well as of their correct sum and their sum plus one element. The ants responded essentially to the two numbers of elements they saw during training, and far less to their sum and sum plus one element. The ants have thus a basic, concrete concept of adding numbers of elements they see. Young human children (3 to 6 years old) have such a concrete concept of numbers and of adding, but they acquire in several months, through learning, an abstract mathematical concept of these notions and of related ones.

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“…The proboscis extension response conditioning procedure has long been used to study appetitive conditioning in controlled laboratory conditions [18][19][20][21], while other methods use free-flying, foraging bees when ecological validity is of greater importance [22,23]. Research using these methods has produced a number of findings related to topics such as visual and olfactory sensation [24][25][26], perception of time [27], conditioned taste aversion [28], learning of abstract concepts [29,30], quantity discrimination [31,32], and the neurophysiology of memory [33][34][35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conspecific and interspecific stimuli reduce initial performance in an aversive learning task in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

et al. 2020

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The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether honey bees (Apis mellifera) are able to use social discriminative stimuli in a spatial aversive conditioning paradigm. We tested bees' ability to avoid shock in a shuttle box apparatus across multiple groups when either shock, or the absence of shock, was associated with a live hive mate, a dead hive mate, a live Polistes exclamans wasp or a dead wasp. Additionally, we used several control groups common to bee shuttle box research where shock was only associated with spatial cues, or where shock was associated with a blue or yellow color. While bees were able to learn the aversive task in a simple spatial discrimination, the presence of any other stimuli (color, another bee, or a wasp) reduced initial performance. While the color biases we discovered are in line with other experiments, the finding that the presence of another animal reduces performance is novel. Generally, it appears that the use of bees or wasps as stimuli initially causes an increase in overall activity that interferes with early performance in the spatial task. During the course of the experiment, the bees habituate to the insect stimuli (bee or wasp), and begin learning the aversive task. Additionally, we found that experimental subject bees did not discriminate between bees or wasps used as stimulus animals, nor did they discriminate between live or dead stimulus animals. This may occur, in part, due to the specialized nature of the worker honey bee. Results are discussed with implications for continual research on honey bees as models of aversive learning, as well as research on insect social learning in general.

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Numerical cognition in honeybees enables addition and subtraction

Abstract: Honeybees learn to add or subtract one item from a set using color cues and can interpolate operations to a novel number.

Cited by 111 publications

References 41 publications

Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees

Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees

Ants Fail to Add Numbers of Same Elements Seen Consecutively

Conspecific and interspecific stimuli reduce initial performance in an aversive learning task in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

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