Abstract
Six experiments with color-odor compounds failed to produce convincing evidence of blocking in honeybees even when the possibility of masking by within-compound association could be discounted. The parsimonious assumption that the components of a compound stimulus gain and lose associative strength independently with reinforcement and nonreinforcement of the compounds (which the experiments were designed to challenge) remains tenable for color-odor compounds, although perhaps not for intramodal compounds.
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This research was supported by Grant IBN-9308132 from the National Science Foundation. The participation of E. S. Funayama, who is now at Yale University, was made possible by an REU supplement to that grant. The authors are indebted to Estrellita T. Mateo for assistance in collection of the data.
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Funayama, E.S., Couvillon, P.A. & Bitterman, M.E. Compound conditioning in honeybees: Blocking tests of the independence assumption. Animal Learning & Behavior 23, 429–437 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198942
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198942