Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Dinges, Christopher W.; Varnon, Christopher A.; Cota, Lisa D.; Slykerman, Stephen; Abramson, Charles I.

doi:10.1037/xan0000133

Cited by 20 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 109 publications

(187 reference statements)

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“…Recently, honeybees were shown to exhibit learned helplessness following inescapable and unavoidable punishment (Dinges et al, 2017), a renown and well-studied phenomenon in higher animals considered to be an underlying cause of depression. Interestingly, bees did not show the typical reduction in activity, rather they remained highly active but failed to restrict their movements to a safe location.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a study where λ + was awarded with sucrose solution while λ − was punished with quinine solution, bees generalized less for similar wavelengths than when λ − was paired with water, indicating that the addition of an aversive component facilitated color discrimination (Avargues-Weber et al, 2010). Honey bees that were operantly conditioned to discriminate a shock-paired color from a safe color in a walking assay displayed passive avoidance of the shock-paired color, while yoked bees (deprived of control over the shocks) exhibited learned helplessness, a well-studied phenomenon present in a range of other species, including humans (Dinges et al, 2017). However, because aversive operant paradigms using visually discriminative stimuli are uncommon, what the bees learn, and how they learn it in such paradigms, is largely uncharted territory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aversive Learning of Colored Lights in Walking Honeybees

Kirkerud

Schlegel

Galizia

2017

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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The honeybee has been established as an important model organism in studies on visual learning. So far the emphasis has been on appetitive conditioning, simulating floral discrimination, and homing behavior, where bees perform exceptionally well in visual discrimination tasks. However, bees in the wild also face dangers, and recent findings suggest that what is learned about visual percepts is highly context dependent. A stimulus that follows an unpleasant period, is associated with the feeling of relief- or safety in humans and animals, thus acquiring a positive meaning. Whether this is also the case in honeybees is still an open question. Here, we conditioned bees aversively in a walking arena where each half was illuminated by light of a specific wavelength and intensity, one of which was combined with electric shocks. In this paradigm, the bees' preferences to the different lights were modified through nine conditioning trials, forming robust escape, and avoidance behaviors. Strikingly, we found that while 465 nm (human blue) and 590 nm (human yellow) lights both could acquire negative valences (inducing avoidance response), 525 nm (human green) light could not. This indicates that green light holds an innate meaning of safety which is difficult to overrule even through intensive aversive conditioning. The bees had slight initial preferences to green over the blue and the yellow lights, which could be compensated by adjusting light intensity. However, this initial bias played a minor role while the chromatic properties were the most salient characteristics of the light stimuli during aversive conditioning. Moreover, bees could learn the light signaling safety, revealing the existence of a relief component in aversive operant conditioning, similar to what has been observed in other animals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aversive Learning of Colored Lights in Walking Honeybees

Kirkerud

Schlegel

Galizia

2017

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…The experiments were conducted using a shuttle box (Dinges et al 2017). The apparatus consists of two separate shuttle boxes with internal compartments measuring 135 mm × 20 mm × 5 mm.…”

Section: Apparatusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is one of the most popular apparatuses used to study aversiveconditioning phenomena such as place learning, escape, avoidance, and time allocation (DeCarlo and Abramson 1989). While honey bees have been shown to respond reliably to aversive conditioning based in a shuttle box paradigm (Dinges et al 2017), it is currently unknown whether or not exposure to a cue, prior to conditioning, has any effect on an individual's performance within the shuttle box chamber. In the experiments reported here, we investigate the possible role of an experiential color bias based upon prior nonaversive experiences in aversive-conditioning situations using a shuttle box system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of environmental experience on aversive conditioning in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)

et al. 2018

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Previous experience in a natural environment with a stimulus has lasting influences on honey bee behavior, as demonstrated in laboratory studies of appetitive conditioning. However, it is unknown whether the same holds true for studies of aversive conditioning. Aversive conditioning is important for insects such as honey bees to survive environmental risks. Previous experience in natural settings may lead to maladaptive behavioral patterns in bees exposed to new risks. This study presents the first examination of the effect of a visual stimulus presented in a naturalistic setting on aversive conditioning, using the shuttle box choice chamber paradigm. The present study examines both the effect of the visual stimuli, as well as differences present between the Apis mellifera subspecies of mellifera and ligustica . Results support the presence of behavioral biases based on the visual stimulus presented prior to the experimental sessions.aversive conditioning / memory carry-over / bias / honey bee / Apis mellifera mellifera / Apis mellifera ligustica / shuttle box

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“…Learned helplessness describes an approach to learning, developed through experience of aversive events that an individual has no control over (Seligman, 1972). Learned helplessness has been observed in species as diverse as honey bees (Dinges, Varnon, Cota, Slykerman & Abramson, 2017), dogs (Seligman, 1972) and humans (Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). Here an environmental factor contributes to establishing a specific approach to future learning, creating individual differences in causal reasoning.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences are more than a gene × environment interaction: The role of learning.

Byrom

Murphy

2018

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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Individual differences in behavior are understood generally as arising from an interaction between genes and environment, omitting a crucial component. The literature on animal and human learning suggests the need to posit principles of learning to explain our differences. One of the challenges for the advancement of the field has been to establish how general principles of learning can explain the almost infinite variation in behavior. We present a case that: 1) individual differences in behavior emerge, in part, from principles of learning; 2) associations provide a descriptive mechanism for understanding the contribution of experience to behavior; 3) learning theories explain dissociable aspects of behavior. We use four examples from the field of learning to illustrate the importance of involving psychology, and associative theory in particular, in the analysis of individual differences, these are; i) fear learning, ii) behavior directed to cues for outcomes (i.e., sign-and goaltracking), iii) stimulus learning related to attention, and iv) human causal learning. Individual Differences 3A goal of research into learning is to characterize how behavior changes with experience within and across species. Thorndike's (1898) Law of Effect was an early attempt to characterize the effect of experience on behavior. In offering a general law of how experience contributes to behavior, Thorndike was also giving an account of how an individual becomes unique.The classic example of Thorndike's method involved cats and an apparatus known as a puzzle box (Thorndike, 1898). The box was a rudimentary cage with latches and gates to afford escape. The cats' dislike of confined space provided a natural motivation to engage in behaviors that might serendipitously lead to release. Thorndike observed that the cats made many false starts but eventually made a response that enabled escape. With repeated exposure to the box, latency to escape decreased. The Law of Effect stated that behaviors preceding any form of 'satisfaction' (e.g., escape) would be reinforced and made more likely on subsequent trials. However, rather than considering this principle as limiting an animal's flexibility to learn, the law only restricts the conditions for learning. Consider that outside the lab, different humans can successfully complete a motivated goal in different ways. They may behave differently but the same Law of Effect strengthens their behaviors.The goals of this paper are to present the case for the individual differences approach to learning theory. We will argue that (1) learning mediates the influence of genes and environment on behavior and (2) there is complexity, to be explored, within models of learning that can account for diversity in learning. Specifically, we suggest that while genes and environment may contribute to the development of differences in learning, that an individual's phenotype interacts with experience and the memories of experience to further cause individual differences. As such, the study of individual diff...

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Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Cited by 20 publications

References 109 publications

Aversive Learning of Colored Lights in Walking Honeybees

Aversive Learning of Colored Lights in Walking Honeybees

Influence of environmental experience on aversive conditioning in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)

Individual differences are more than a gene × environment interaction: The role of learning.

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