Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK.
Science. 2017 Feb 24;355(6327):833-836. doi: 10.1126/science.aag2360.
We explored bees' behavioral flexibility in a task that required transporting a small ball to a defined location to gain a reward. Bees were pretrained to know the correct location of the ball. Subsequently, to obtain a reward, bees had to move a displaced ball to the defined location. Bees that observed demonstration of the technique from a live or model demonstrator learned the task more efficiently than did bees observing a "ghost" demonstration (ball moved via magnet) or without demonstration. Instead of copying demonstrators moving balls over long distances, observers solved the task more efficiently, using the ball positioned closest to the target, even if it was of a different color than the one previously observed. Such unprecedented cognitive flexibility hints that entirely novel behaviors could emerge relatively swiftly in species whose lifestyle demands advanced learning abilities, should relevant ecological pressures arise.
我们在一项需要将一个小球运送到指定位置以获得奖励的任务中探究了蜜蜂的行为灵活性。蜜蜂在这项任务中需要先被训练知道小球的正确位置。随后，为了获得奖励，蜜蜂必须将一个被移动的球移动到指定的位置。与观察通过磁体移动的“幽灵”演示（ball moved via magnet）或没有演示的蜜蜂相比，观察活体或模型演示者展示的技术的蜜蜂更有效地学习了任务。观察者没有模仿演示者远距离移动球，而是更有效地解决了任务，使用了最接近目标的球，即使它的颜色与之前观察到的不同。这种前所未有的认知灵活性表明，如果相关的生态压力出现，那些生活方式需要高级学习能力的物种可能会相对迅速地产生全新的行为。
