Honeybees Seem To Understand the Notion of Zero, Study Finds (sci-news.com)

A new study published in the journal Science finds honeybees are able to understand the concept of zero numerosity, joining the ranks of dolphins, parrots, and primates. Sci-News.com reports: The study authors set out to test the honeybee on its understanding, marking individual honeybees for easy identification and luring them to a specially-designed testing apparatus. The bees were trained to choose an image with the lowest number of elements in order to receive a reward of sugar solution. For example, the bees learned to choose three elements when presented with three vs. four; or two elements when presented with two vs. three. When the scientists periodically tested the bees with an image that contained no elements versus an image that had one or more, the bees understood that the set of zero was the lower number -- despite never having been exposed to an "empty set."

Comments

Why is this surprising?

[Viol8]

If they didn't understand the concept of zero or empty then they'd keep going back to flowers that had run out of nectar.

Understanding quantity is a useful survival trait, I don't understand why some scientists find it so amazing that animals understand the concept of "none".

Re:Why is this surprising?

[asylumx]

Because they went to the zero case to RECEIVE a reward, which is the opposite of the instinct you described.

Or...

[RobinH]

Or they were trained to avoid the element itself. What's more likely, that an insect can "understand the concept of zero" or that it can combine two stimuli (I want to go towards this thing for the sugar, but I want to stay away from the element)?

Smart bees!

[hcs_$reboot]

Understanding zero is comprehending the number of bees that will remain if we continue to use pesticides.

Image processing

[Excelcia]

Or they were trained to avoid the element itself. What's more likely, that an insect can "understand the concept of zero" or that it can combine two stimuli (I want to go towards this thing for the sugar, but I want to stay away from the element)?

Considering that insects don't have the same kind of image processing or, indeed, even the same kind of eyes, I find this far more likely than they are counting elements. It is far more likely that a bee is being trained to go where there is less overall of whatever color it is the "element" is and gravitating that way. Or, and this now strikes me as being even more likely, they are going where there is more of the background. A human can look at an image and with our image processing, break it down into elements and count them. Our brains do this in the background and it might not even strike us that the image with fewer elements has more background because that's not how our brains work. It is how our brains work so strongly that it is also appearing as a bias in the way these results are being interpreted. But from a color, shade, or pixel perspective, it can be equally said that the image with fewer "elements" on it also has more background.

I must say I find it frustrating the article has no reference to what the images were of or what the "elements" were that the bees were supposedly counting.

Re: Image processing

[orlanz]

That would still count as zero recognition. If it's going after more of the background. Background is a concept in itself. It needs something in the foreground to define it. Else the bees would hover toward any similar color at various distances in the general environment.

But zero means no foreground color. Nothing to define the background. So normally the bee should be confused or gravitate toward the single "option". If they trained the bee with zero, then that's leaves it kind of open. But they didn't. They trained it with two colors where one had less. There was always two options with both colors. Then the bee recognized zero which it was never trained for... thus it was already knowledge it had.

Re:Bees are fascinating animals.

[Rei]

How do you define feelings and thoughts? Metacognition (the ability to reflect on one's own thoughts), for example? Be careful if that's your basis, because even rats do that. The same may some day be shown for bees (although I'm not aware of any experiments at present that have attempted to test this).

It's an uncomfortable thought that the world around us is not just mindless automatons, but that it's thinking beings, regularly having their lives snuffed out by others. Including by us, whether by necessity or choice.

But, the world doesn't care what makes us comfortable.