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Math is famous for his divisions. Some people like to say that they are not "maths" if they have problems with the subject (although this may not be a healthy approach). Well, guess who became a math? Bees!
Dedicated readers can remember some stories on this front. Almost exactly one year ago, we learned that bees can understand basic numbers, including the semi-abstract concept of zero. Then, in February, scientists said they had discovered not only that bees can count, but that they can also perform basic calculations.
The bees math trilogy is over. With a new study published Tuesday in Acts of the Royal Society B, the same international team of researchers behind these discoveries has announced that bees are also able to link digital symbols to real quantities, and vice versa.
This means that bees can equate a symbol such as the number 2 with the actual abstract numeric quantity of 2 "things", whatever the things.
All this was a shock because insects have less than a billion neurons in the brain. They are also quite different from us and other animals that have demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics: pigeons, gray parrots, rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees. But it is clear that the spine is not everything and that the bees have what it takes to get numbers as few other species can so far. Today's discovery not only improves the reputation of bees, but also gives insight into how other species treat and communicate the very concept of numbers.
Practice makes perfect
So, how do you train bees to recognize that a given symbol means a "number" or a specific quantity? Or that a specific number corresponds to a given symbol? In the same way, you are encouraging humans to learn it at an early age: practice.
Researchers trained 20 honeybees and tagged each insect with a colored dot to identify them. Then they watched the bees for about two to four hours each. Half learned to associate symbols with a numerical quantity and the other half on the contrary, associating quantities with symbols. (In all cases, an inverted "T" replaces 3 and an "N" 2).
To train them, the researchers placed the bees in a Y-shaped labyrinth. In the first chamber, the base of the Y, the bees saw the thing they were trained on – the numerical symbol or quantity – and they then had to choose the leg of the Y in which they had to go, the latter being labeled with a symbol. good answer and the other a bad one. The right answers were rewarded with delicious sucrose and the wrong answers with spiny quinine. (And do not feel bad for slow learners. "If a bee made a bad choice and started to absorb quinine, he was allowed to … collect sucrose to maintain his motivation." Do not want any bee without motivation! )
After the training, the bees were tested to determine if they had a good understanding of the concepts, choosing from numericality options never seen before to represent the numerical quantity (using different colors, for example, or different shapes of different sizes). And, for the most part, whatever the hints of the researchers, bees can get away with reliably identifying the many things, or the right symbol, according to their training.
"Bees in both groups have shown significant learning," write the authors, "demonstrating that bees learned both [symbols] corresponded with the corresponding quantities. "Good for you honey bees!
One-way learning
But there was one thing that bees could not handle: reverse their training. The group that learned that N means 2, for example, could not understand that 2 was N, and vice versa. "While independent bee groups are able to learn the two-way association with similar performance during training and testing, it seems that the association itself is not reversible, "write the authors.
Which is pretty cool. Even the most philophobic people will probably have no trouble understanding the idea that if a symbol refers to a number of things, the opposite is also true – most school kids do not struggle with the same meaning of the numbers all. But something in the way bees learned to understand these representations of numbers prevented them from making this connection.
Humans treat numbers and symbols in different parts of
their brain, so this finding may suggest that bees do the same, and are just not
able to connect them as well. "Understanding how seemingly complex digital systems
skills are acquired by miniature brains will help to enable our understanding of
how mathematical and cultural thought has evolved in humans, "write the authors. "And
possibly other animals. "
As far as we know, humans are the only animals that have
come up with mathematics. But it seems more and more that we are not the only ones
who can do it.
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