Behavioral Physiology & Sociobiology (Zoology II), Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany.
Behavioral Physiology & Sociobiology (Zoology II), Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
J Exp Biol. 2019 May 28;222(Pt 10):jeb201483. doi: 10.1242/jeb.201483.
Honeybees use visual and olfactory cues to detect flowers during foraging trips. Hence, the reward association of a nectar source is a multimodal construct which has at least two major components - olfactory and visual cues. How both sensory modalities are integrated to form a common reward association and whether and how they may interfere, is an open question. The present study used stimulation with UV, blue and green light to evoke distinct photoreceptor activities in the compound eye and two odour components (geraniol, citronellol). To test if a compound of both modalities is perceived as the sum of its elements (elemental processing) or as a unique cue (configural processing), we combined monochromatic light with single odour components in positive (PP) and negative patterning (NP) experiments. During PP, the compound of two modalities was rewarded, whereas the single elements were not. For NP, stimuli comprising a single modality were rewarded, whereas the olfactory-visual compound was not. Furthermore, we compared the differentiation abilities between two light stimuli that were or were not part of an olfactory-visual compound. Interestingly, the behavioural performances revealed a prominent case of configural processing, but only in those cases when UV light was an element of an olfactory-visual compound. Instead, learning with green- and blue-containing compounds rather supports elemental processing theory.
蜜蜂在觅食过程中利用视觉和嗅觉线索来探测花朵。因此，花蜜源的奖励关联是一种多模态结构，至少有两个主要成分——嗅觉和视觉线索。这两种感觉模式如何整合形成共同的奖励关联，以及它们是否可能相互干扰，这是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究使用紫外线、蓝光和绿光刺激来诱发复眼和两种气味成分（香叶醇、香茅醇）中的特定光感受器活动。为了测试两种模式的组合是否被感知为其元素的总和（元素加工）或作为独特的线索（组态加工），我们在正（PP）和负模式（NP）实验中结合了单色光和单一气味成分。在 PP 中，两种模式的组合受到奖励，而单一元素则不受奖励。对于 NP，由单一模式组成的刺激受到奖励，而嗅觉-视觉组合则不受奖励。此外，我们比较了两种光刺激之间的区分能力，这两种光刺激是否是嗅觉-视觉组合的一部分。有趣的是，行为表现揭示了一种明显的组态加工案例，但仅在 UV 光作为嗅觉-视觉组合的一部分时才如此。相反，包含绿光和蓝光的化合物的学习更支持元素加工理论。
