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Dhein K. The cognitive map debate in insects: A historical perspective on what is at stake. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 2023; 98:62-79. [PMID: 36863222 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.12.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2021] [Revised: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 12/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Though well established in mammals, the cognitive map hypothesis has engendered a decades-long, ongoing debate in insect navigation studies involving many of the field's most prominent researchers. In this paper, I situate the debate within the broader context of 20th century animal behavior research and argue that the debate persists because competing research groups are guided by different constellations of epistemic aims, theoretical commitments, preferred animal subjects, and investigative practices. The expanded history of the cognitive map provided in this paper shows that more is at stake in the cognitive map debate than the truth value of propositions characterizing insect cognition. What is at stake is the future direction of an extraordinarily productive tradition of insect navigation research stretching back to Karl von Frisch. Disciplinary labels like ethology, comparative psychology, and behaviorism became less relevant at the turn of the 21st century, but as I show, the different ways of knowing animals associated with these disciplines continue to motivate debates about animal cognition. This examination of scientific disagreement surrounding the cognitive map hypothesis also has significant consequences for philosophers' use of cognitive map research as a case study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelle Dhein
- Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM, 87501, USA.
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Kheradmand B, Nieh JC. The Role of Landscapes and Landmarks in Bee Navigation: A Review. INSECTS 2019; 10:E342. [PMID: 31614833 PMCID: PMC6835465 DOI: 10.3390/insects10100342] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2019] [Revised: 10/08/2019] [Accepted: 10/09/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The ability of animals to explore landmarks in their environment is essential to their fitness. Landmarks are widely recognized to play a key role in navigation by providing information in multiple sensory modalities. However, what is a landmark? We propose that animals use a hierarchy of information based upon its utility and salience when an animal is in a given motivational state. Focusing on honeybees, we suggest that foragers choose landmarks based upon their relative uniqueness, conspicuousness, stability, and context. We also propose that it is useful to distinguish between landmarks that provide sensory input that changes ("near") or does not change ("far") as the receiver uses these landmarks to navigate. However, we recognize that this distinction occurs on a continuum and is not a clear-cut dichotomy. We review the rich literature on landmarks, focusing on recent studies that have illuminated our understanding of the kinds of information that bees use, how they use it, potential mechanisms, and future research directions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bahram Kheradmand
- Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
| | - James C Nieh
- Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
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Najera DA, McCullough EL, Jander R. Honeybees Use Celestial and/or Terrestrial Compass Cues for Inter-Patch Navigation. Ethology 2014. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.12319] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Beugnon G, Pastergue-Ruiz I, Schatz B, Lachaud JP. Cognitive approach of spatial and temporal information processing in insects. Behav Processes 2014; 35:55-62. [PMID: 24896019 DOI: 10.1016/0376-6357(95)00061-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/10/1995] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Within the theoretical framework of adaptive significance, it is often claimed that insects learn just what they are genetically programmed to learn. Consequently, because of the alleged lack of plasticity of their behaviour, many learning tests applied to insects are limited to very simple associative Stimulus-Response research paradigms. If the behaviouristic approach can explain most of the behavioural responses of insect species facing very simple situations, behaviour requires other strategies for learning and memorizing environmental information in species confronting complex and variable ecological conditions, as it is the case for many hymenoptera species. Among them, forager ants Cataglyphis cursor can discriminate, select, store and represent spatial information within a few days, allowing them to locate their remote nest in a highly controlled visual environment. They can learn something about the spatial arrangement of the landmarks configuration and accurately home even in the absence of the main visual stimulus associated to this place. Ectatomma ruidum ants are also capable to store jointly spatial and temporal information in order to schedule their feeding behaviour. Thus, the representational format of spatial and temporal memories in some insect species appears to be more subtle than is generally assumed when compared to other animal species.
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Affiliation(s)
- G Beugnon
- Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Psychologie Animale, CNRS URA No. 1837 and PRESCOT, Université Paul-Sabatier, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse cedex, France
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Van Oystaeyen A, Araujo Alves D, Caliari Oliveira R, Lima do Nascimento D, Santos do Nascimento F, Billen J, Wenseleers T. Sneaky queens in Melipona bees selectively detect and infiltrate queenless colonies. Anim Behav 2013. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.07.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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6
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Cognitive maps and spatial inference in animals: Rats fail to take a novel shortcut, but can take a previously experienced one. LEARNING AND MOTIVATION 2013. [DOI: 10.1016/j.lmot.2012.08.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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Interpatch foraging in honeybees—rational decision making at secondary hubs based upon time and motivation. Anim Cogn 2012; 15:1195-203. [DOI: 10.1007/s10071-012-0544-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2012] [Revised: 04/23/2012] [Accepted: 07/16/2012] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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Najera DA, Jander R. Honeybee methodology, cognition, and theory: recording local directional decisions in interpatch foraging and interpreting their theoretical relevance. Anim Cogn 2011; 15:251-63. [DOI: 10.1007/s10071-011-0450-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2011] [Revised: 08/28/2011] [Accepted: 08/29/2011] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
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Schöne H, Tengö J. Homing in the Digger Wasp Bembix rostrata (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae) - Release Direction and Weather Conditions. Ethology 2010. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1991.tb01197.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Schöne H, Westermayr P, Kühme D, Kühme L, Schöne M, Schöne R. Searching Behaviour and Direction Finding of Differently Motivated Displaced Honeybees-an ‘Etho-psychological’ Study of Release Behaviour. Ethology 2010. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1998.tb00051.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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Schöne H, Harris AC, Schöne H, Mahalski PA. Homing after Displacement in Open or Closed Containers by the Digger Wasp Argogorytes carbonarius (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae). Ethology 2010. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1993.tb00465.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Whitney HM, Dyer A, Chittka L, Rands SA, Glover BJ. The interaction of temperature and sucrose concentration on foraging preferences in bumblebees. Naturwissenschaften 2008; 95:845-50. [PMID: 18523748 DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0393-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 69] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2008] [Revised: 04/16/2008] [Accepted: 04/17/2008] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Several authors have found that flowers that are warmer than their surrounding environment have an advantage in attracting pollinators. Bumblebees will forage preferentially on warmer flowers, even if equal nutritional reward is available in cooler flowers. This raises the question of whether warmth and sucrose concentration are processed independently by bees, or whether sweetness detectors respond to higher sugar concentration as well as higher temperature. We find that bumblebees can use lower temperature as a cue to higher sucrose reward, showing that bees appear to process the two parameters strictly independently. Moreover, we demonstrate that sucrose concentration takes precedence over warmth, so that when there is a difference in sucrose concentration, bees will typically choose the sweeter feeder, even if the less sweet feeder is several degrees warmer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather M Whitney
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK
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Abstract
Communication and learning from each other are part of the success of insect societies. Here, we review a spectrum of social information usage in insects--from inadvertently provided cues to signals shaped by selection specifically for information transfer. We pinpoint the sensory modalities involved and, in some cases, quantify the adaptive benefits. Well substantiated cases of social learning among the insects include learning about predation threat and floral rewards, the transfer of route information using a symbolic 'language' (the honeybee dance) and the rapid spread of chemosensory preferences through honeybee colonies via classical conditioning procedures. More controversial examples include the acquisition of motor memories by observation, teaching in ants and behavioural traditions in honeybees. In many cases, simple mechanistic explanations can de identified for such complex behaviour patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ellouise Leadbeater
- School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
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Foo P, Duchon A, Warren WH, Tarr MJ. Humans do not switch between path knowledge and landmarks when learning a new environment. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2006; 71:240-51. [PMID: 16957956 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-006-0080-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2005] [Accepted: 03/15/2006] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Using a metric shortcut paradigm, we have found that like honeybees (Dyer in Animal Behaviour 41:239-246, 1991), humans do not seem to build a metric "cognitive map" from path integration. Instead, observers take novel shortcuts based on visual landmarks whenever they are available and reliable (Foo, Warren, Duchon, & Tarr in Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition 31(2):195-215, 2005). In the present experiment we examine whether humans, like ants (Wolf & Wehner in Journal of Experimental Biology 203:857-868, 2000), first use survey-type path knowledge, built up from path integration, and then subsequently shift to reliance on landmarks. In our study participants walked in an immersive virtual environment while head position and orientation were recorded. During training, participants learned two legs of a triangle with feedback: paths from Home to Red and Home to Blue. A configuration of colored posts surrounded the Red location. To test reliance on landmarks, these posts were covertly translated, rotated, or left unchanged during six probe trials. These probe trials were interspersed during the training procedure to measure changes over learning. Dependence on visual landmarks was immediate and sustained during training, and no significant learning effects were observed other than a decrease in hesitation time. Our results suggest that while humans have at least two distinct navigational strategies available to them, unlike ants, a computationally-simpler landmark strategy dominates during novel shortcut navigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick Foo
- Department of Psychology, One University Heights, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC 28804, USA.
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Wehner R, Boyer M, Loertscher F, Sommer S, Menzi U. Ant Navigation: One-Way Routes Rather Than Maps. Curr Biol 2006; 16:75-9. [PMID: 16401425 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2005.11.035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 125] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2005] [Revised: 11/01/2005] [Accepted: 11/01/2005] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
In recent years, there has been an upsurge of interest and debate about whether social insects-central-place foragers such as bees and ants-acquire and use cognitive maps, which enable the animal to steer novel courses between familiar sites . Especially in honey bees, it has been claimed that these insects indeed possess such "general landscape memories" and use them in a "map-like" way . Here, we address this question in Australian desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, which forage within cluttered environments full of nearby and more distant landmarks. Within these environments, the ants establish landmark-based idiosyncratic routes from the nest to their feeding sites and select different one-way routes for their outbound and inbound journeys. Various types of displacement experiments show that inbound ants when hitting their inbound routes at any particular place immediately channel in and follow these routes until they reach the nest, but that they behave as though lost when hitting their habitual outbound routes. Hence, familiar landmarks are not decoupled from the context within which they have been acquired and are not knitted together in a more general and potentially map-like way. They instruct the ants when to do what rather than provide them with map-like information about their position in space.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rüdiger Wehner
- Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
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Foo P, Warren WH, Duchon A, Tarr MJ. Do humans integrate routes into a cognitive map? Map- versus landmark-based navigation of novel shortcuts. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2005; 31:195-215. [PMID: 15755239 DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.31.2.195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 132] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Do humans integrate experience on specific routes into metric survey knowledge of the environment, or do they depend on a simpler strategy of landmark navigation? The authors tested this question using a novel shortcut paradigm during walking in a virtual environment. The authors find that participants could not take successful shortcuts in a desert world but could do so with dispersed landmarks in a forest. On catch trials, participants were drawn toward the displaced landmarks whether the landmarks were clustered near the target location or along the shortcut route. However, when landmarks appeared unreliable, participants fell back on coarse survey knowledge. Like honeybees (F. C. Dyer, 1991), humans do not appear to derive accurate cognitive maps from path integration to guide navigation but, instead, depend on landmarks when they are available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick Foo
- Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University.
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Abstract
The navigational strategies that are used by foraging ants and bees to reach a goal are similar to those of birds and mammals. Species from all these groups use path integration and memories of visual landmarks to navigate through familiar terrain. Insects have far fewer neural resources than vertebrates, so data from insects might be useful in revealing the essential components of efficient navigation. Recent work on ants and bees has uncovered a major role for associative links between long-term memories. We emphasize the roles of these associations in the reliable recognition of visual landmarks and the reliable performance of learnt routes. It is unknown whether such associations also provide insects with a map-like representation of familiar terrain. We suggest, however, that landmarks act primarily as signposts that tell insects what particular action they need to perform, rather than telling them where they are.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas S Collett
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.
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Menzel R, Brandt R, Gumbert A, Komischke B, Kunze J. Two spatial memories for honeybee navigation. Proc Biol Sci 2000; 267:961-8. [PMID: 10874744 PMCID: PMC1690634 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 92] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Insect navigation is thought to be based on an egocentric reference system which relates vector information derived from path integration to views of landmarks experienced en route and at the goal. Here we show that honeybees also possess an allocentric form of spatial memory which allows localization of multiple places relative to the intended goal, the hive. The egocentric route memory, which is called the specialized route memory (SRM) here, initially dominates navigation when an animal is first trained to a feeding site and then released at an unexpected site and this is why it is the only reference system detected so far in experiments with bees. However, the SRM can be replaced by an allocentric spatial memory called the general landscape memory (GLM). The GLM is directly accessible to the honeybee (and to the experimenter) if no SRM exists, for example, if bees were not trained along a route before testing. Under these conditions bees return to the hive from all directions around the hive at a speed comparable to that of an equally long flight along a trained route. The flexible use of the GLM indicates that bees may store relational information on places, connections between landmarks and the hive and/or views of landmarks from different directions and, thus, the GLM may have a graph structure, at least with respect to one goal, i.e. the hive.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Menzel
- Institut für Neurobiologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Giurfa
- Institut für Neurobiologie, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
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Menzel R, Geiger K, Joerges J, MULLER U, Chittka L. Bees travel novel homeward routes by integrating separately acquired vector memories. Anim Behav 1998; 55:139-52. [PMID: 9480680 DOI: 10.1006/anbe.1997.0574] [Citation(s) in RCA: 73] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
The question of whether bees can take novel short cuts between familiar sites has been central to the discussion about the existence of cognitive maps in these insects. The failure of bees to show this capacity in the majority of previous studies may be a result of the training procedure, because extensive training to one feeding site may have eliminated or weakened memories for other sites that were previously trained. Here we present a novel approach to this problem, by rewarding honey bees, Apis mellifera carnica, at two feeding sites, one (Sm, 630 m southeast from the hive) at which they could feed in the morning, and the other (Sa, 790 m northeast) at which they could feed in the afternoon. We then displaced bees to Sa in the morning and to Sm in the afternoon either from the other feeding site or from the hive. Bees were also displaced to two novel sites, one at a completely unfamiliar location (S4) and another that was located halfway between the two feeding sites (S3). Bees displaced from either of the feeding sites never took novel short cuts; instead, they used the homeward directions that would have been correct had they not been displaced. Bees caught at the hive entrance, however, chose the correct homeward direction not only when displaced to both feeding sites, but also when displaced to S3, although not from S4. Control bees that had been trained to only one of the feeding sites were not able to travel directly home from S3 excluding the possibility that bees used landmarks close to the hive. This is the first evidence that bees take a novel short cut by activating two vector memories simultaneously. The potential mechanisms of integrating the two memories are discussed. Since bees took novel short cuts in only one direction (to the hive) and only when displaced from the hive (not the feeders), we conclude that inference of a cognitive map in bees would be premature. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Menzel
- Institut fur Neurobiologie, Freie Universitat Berlin
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Take-off behavior and vanishing bearings of honeybees after displacement with open view or in a sight-proof box. Naturwissenschaften 1995. [DOI: 10.1007/bf01131534] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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