Abstract
Foraging honeybees were trained individually with successively presented targets differing in color, one containing 5 µl and the other 20 µl of 50% sucrose solution, after which preferences were measured in unrewarded choice tests. The targets were conical, designed to control for the possibility of differential delay of reward stemming from the greater detectability of the larger as compared with the smaller drops of sucrose when the drops were presented on the conventional flat targets. The new results for color, like recent results for odor, can be understood on the assumption that the attractiveness of a stimulus increases as a function of the strength of its association with reward and that the effect of amount of reward is on asymptotic strength.
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This research was supported by Grant BNS-9010609 from the National Science Foundation. The authors are indebted to Marilyn Caoili and Ellen Funayama for assistance in collecting the data.
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Couvillon, P.A., Bitterman, M.E. Learning in honeybees as a function of amount of reward: Further experiments with color. Animal Learning & Behavior 21, 23–28 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197971
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197971