Abstract
The performance of free-flying and harnessed honeybees has been studied in a variety of experiments patterned after those in which learning in vertebrates has been studied—among them experiments on amount, quality, and probability of reward; on compound conditioning and discrimination; and on spatial learning and memory. Despite the remoteness of the evolutionary relationship and the vast differences in brain size and structure, the results for honeybees are strikingly similar to those for vertebrates in many respects and different in only a few. The extent to which phenomena of learning common to honeybees and vertebrates can be understood in terms of common functional principles and mechanisms remains to be determined. None of the differences in the results for honeybees and vertebrates points unmistakably to a difference in their learning.
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This work was supported by a series of grants (currently, IBN-9308132) from the National Science Foundation. I am indebted to my colleague, Patricia A. Couvillon, who played an important part in it almost from the beginning.
Note: This article is one of those occasionally invited by the editor in which authors have the opportunity to provide an overview of their research programs.—Editor
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Bitterman, M.E. Comparative analysis of learning in honeybees. Animal Learning & Behavior 24, 123–141 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198961
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198961