Horridge Adrian
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
PLoS One. 2015 Jan 24;10(1):e0116224. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116224. eCollection 2015.
A century ago, in his study of colour vision in the honeybee (Apis mellifera), Karl von Frisch showed that bees distinguish between a disc that is half yellow, half blue, and a mirror image of the same. Although his inference of colour vision in this example has been accepted, some discrepancies have prompted a new investigation of the detection of polarity in coloured patterns. In new experiments, bees restricted to their blue and green receptors by exclusion of ultraviolet could learn patterns of this type if they displayed a difference in green contrast between the two colours. Patterns with no green contrast required an additional vertical black line as a landmark. Tests of the trained bees revealed that they had learned two inputs; a measure and the retinotopic position of blue with large field tonic detectors, and the measure and position of a vertical edge or line with small-field phasic green detectors. The angle between these two was measured. This simple combination was detected wherever it occurred in many patterns, fitting the definition of an algorithm, which is defined as a method of processing data. As long as they excited blue receptors, colours could be any colour to human eyes, even white. The blue area cue could be separated from the green receptor modulation by as much as 50°. When some blue content was not available, the bees learned two measures of the modulation of the green receptors at widely separated vertical edges, and the angle between them. There was no evidence that the bees reconstructed the lay-out of the pattern or detected a tonic input to the green receptors.
一个世纪前，卡尔·冯·弗里施在对蜜蜂（西方蜜蜂）的色觉研究中表明，蜜蜂能够区分一个一半为黄色、一半为蓝色的圆盘及其镜像。尽管他在这个例子中对色觉的推断已被接受，但一些差异促使人们对彩色图案中极性的检测展开新的研究。在新的实验中，如果两种颜色在绿色对比度上存在差异，通过排除紫外线而仅受蓝色和绿色感受器限制的蜜蜂能够学会这种类型的图案。没有绿色对比度的图案则需要额外的垂直黑线作为地标。对经过训练的蜜蜂的测试表明，它们学会了两种输入信息：一种是通过大视野张力探测器测量的蓝色以及蓝色在视网膜上的位置，另一种是通过小视野相位绿色探测器测量的垂直边缘或线条的测量值及位置。测量这两者之间的夹角。无论这种简单组合出现在许多图案中的何处，都能被检测到，这符合算法的定义，算法被定义为一种处理数据的方法。只要能激发蓝色感受器，对于人类眼睛来说颜色可以是任何颜色，甚至是白色。蓝色区域线索与绿色感受器调制之间的角度差可达50°。当没有蓝色成分时，蜜蜂学会了在相距很远的垂直边缘处对绿色感受器调制的两种测量值以及它们之间的夹角。没有证据表明蜜蜂重建了图案的布局或检测到了对绿色感受器的张力输入。
