Pattern recognition in honeybees: local and global analysis

Abstract

This study explores the ability of honeybees to use local and global cues in learning patterns, by training them on patterns that contain both types of cue. The experiments are designed to investigate existing theories of what insects ‘see’ in visual patterns, and to unravel the mechanisms underlying feature extraction. The results show that bees are capable of discriminating visual patterns on the basis of local as well as global cues, and, having learned both without knowing in advance which is significant, they can perform the discrimination on the basis of one type of cue alone when the other type is absent. Under the conditions of our experiments, global cues dominate over local cues when the two types of cue are set in opposition. The results also suggest that local and global cues are analysed by separate processes.