The binding of visual patterns in bumblebees

Abstract

Bees navigating between their nests and foraging sites rely on their ability to learn and to recall many complex visual patterns [1-4]. How are the elements that make up one of these patterns bound together so that the whole pattern can be recalled when it is required? Consider the sentence: 'Dons nod off.' The words in it can be distinguished by the pattern of elements or letters that they contain. Words may contain the same elements arranged in different orders (don, nod), or contain elements of different types, or vary in both these respects (nod, off). We show here that bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) can learn to group the elements of a pattern together, such that different identifiable patterns contain the same elements in different combinations--analogous to the grouping of letters found in words. Our results suggest that pattern binding in bees is achieved in part by linking pattern elements directly together and in part by associating the elements with cues that are related to the context in which the pattern is seen.

The binding and recall of snapshot memories in wood ants (Formica rufaL.)

“…In general, associative links between spatially separated parts of a snapshot will make recognition more robust. In recent years, there have been a number of studies showing that bees can form associative links between different visual stimuli (Srininvasan et al, 1998;Zhang et al, 1999;Giurfa et al, 2001) and that the same visual stimuli can be bound together in different combinations in different contexts (Fauria et al, 2000). The present study indicates that associative links may be formed between items viewed simultaneously by different regions of the retina.…”

Are Bigger Brains Better?

“…Perhaps wielding Occam's razor too extensively, Horridge [77] claimed that bees might actually extract only low-level cues -such as edge orientation, contour length or spectral content -from visual scenes, and never bind them together into a coherent image. It might, however, be very difficult to generate adaptive behaviour without such binding (compare Balint's syndrome in humans), and indeed it has been shown unambiguously that bees can bind together various pattern features into an image [78,79]. The cognitive abilities of insects are less surprising if one considers the neuronal circuitry required to perform them.…”

Cognition in Invertebrates

“…They can also learn that an annular or a radial disk must be chosen, depending on the disk's association with a 45 or a 135 grating either at the feeder or the nest entrance: in one context, the nest, access to it was allowed by the combinations 45 þ radial disk and 135 þ annular disk, but not by the combinations 45 þ annular disk and 135 þ radial disk; at the feeder, the opposite was true (Fauria et al, 2000). In both cases, the potentially competing visuomotor associations were insulated from each other because they were set in different contexts.…”