We taught bees a simple numerical language, and they understood it.

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Most children learn that the written numbers represent quantities in primary or preschool.

Now, our new study shows that bees can also learn to match symbols and numbers, as humans do with Arabic and Roman numerals.

Human language and mathematics

Language is the ability to learn and use a system of symbolic representations for communication. This includes an ability to associate signs with abstract information.

For example, grouped letters form a word that we can read, and the words retained in the right order allow us to have a conversation. Human language can incorporate spoken, written, visually signed or tactile forms such as Braille.

Around the world, humans have developed many spoken and written languages. However, mathematics in particular is often considered a "universal language" because mathematical concepts that describe values ​​and equations do not depend on cultural or other frameworks.

We are interested in the question of whether digital symbols are truly universal, that is, they also work for species that are not human.

The language of bees

The bee is a super organism for the study of the treatment of comparative information in the brain. In 1973, Karl von Frisch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his demonstrations demonstrating that the bee could communicate with his hive companions via a symbolic dance language.

von Frisch has shown that a foraging bee that locates valuable flowers can return to a hive and indicate both the direction and distance of the nutritious flowers through a "wriggling dance". Other bees can interpret the language of dance to know where to fly to collect nectar.

We wondered whether such an impressive communication system meant that bees could learn another type of symbolic language, a basic system of symbolic numbers.

It is interesting to note that chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, pigeons and a single African gray parrot named Alex have demonstrated the ability to learn Arabic numerals or English names for numbers. This shows us that if no non-human species seems to have developed a symbolic representation of the number, it is not because it does not have the cerebral capacity to understand such representations.

Our work has already shown that honey bees can learn and apply complex numerical concepts, such as larger items compared to smaller ones, a quantitative evaluation of "zero" and simple arithmetic.

We have deepened this knowledge with our latest research.

How do bees learn?

To train bees to match symbols (called "signs") and numbers (called "numbers"), we used a subset of the symbols previously used to train pigeons for a similar task.

The bees were trained to fly in a Y-shaped labyrinth. In the labyrinth, the bee would see a stimulus. The bee would then fly into the decision chamber if she would see two options, one correct and one incorrect.

A group of bees was formed to match a sign with a number, while a second group was formed to match a number to a sign.

If the bees learned to match a sign to a number, they would see it first, then have the option of choosing two or three shapes. If the bees learned to match a number to a sign, they would first see a number of items, such as three squares, and then be able to choose between two signs.

For example, if a bee sees an N-shaped sign, she will have to choose a display with two elements. It would need to be able to do it regardless of the shape, pattern or color of the objects presented.

If the bee chose correctly, she would receive a sweet solution, but if she chose badly, she would taste bitter quinine (which does not hurt the bee but which is not nice to him). More importantly, neither quinine nor sugar can be felt by the bee. The only clue for decision making is therefore visual.

Symbol corresponding to the number

The bees were trained at 50 trials to match an N-shaped sign with the number "two" and an inverted T-shaped sign with the number "three", and reached a precision of about 75% . This is the first time that the symbol corresponding to a number is displayed on an invertebrate.

Once the training was over, the bees were tested in several conditions with completely new patterns, colors and shapes, and continued to associate the sign with the number, or numbered with the sign.

Interestingly, however, we found that bees were unable to reverse their learned tasks. If a bee had learned to match a sign to a number, then it could not match a number to a sign, or vice versa. It seems that the association between number and symbolic representation has only been learned in one direction and can not be reversed.

It is interesting to note that this type of learning outcomes – called operational schemas – sometimes apply to the way humans learn.

What does it mean?

Although no other species that humans have spontaneously developed a language for numbers, our research suggests that an insect can understand and learn the basic representation of numbers with the help of symbols. .

The system we taught to bees was limited in many ways. For example, we trained bees to bind only two quantities and two symbols. Moreover, we do not yet know if the bees gave a quantitative value to the symbols; we simply know that they can relate the symbol and the quantity.

And yet, it is remarkable that bees have shown a certain ability to understand numbers by means of symbols.

We wonder if, as human beings, we are so special after all – that perhaps the ability to learn mathematics could be universal.

Despite the limitations of current research, we have little demonstrated the symbolic communication with a species of insect, which has separated us from more than 600 million years of evolution.

Our research lays the groundwork for the development of a communication system with very different animal species and shows that the differences between human and nonhuman animals are not as important in some ways as we would have thought before .

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.