Pattern recognition in honeybees: multidimensional scaling reveals a city-block metric.
Bees were trained to discriminate ring-patterns which varied in number of rings and in size. Transfer-tests revealed size discrimination to be largely independent of pattern type and vice versa. A multidimensional scaling procedure, using Minkowski metrics as models, was applied in order to determine the bee's "perceptual metric". The city-block metric, and not the Euclidean metric, provided the best description of the data. Apparently, the bee's perceptual system derives the overall dissimilarity of complex ring-patterns additively from the component differences. These results are discussed with regard to "holistic" and "analytic" processing modes postulated for the perception of human subjects.
Ronacher
B
B
Institut für Zoologie II, Universität Erlangen, Germany.
D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D004056:Differential Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012858:Size Perception / Q000502:physiology