ArticlePLoS computational biology2018
Abstract concept learning in a simple neural network inspired by the insect brain.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Mapping Gene Expression in Whole Larval Brains ofMethods and protocols · 2025Article
- How can we apply decision-making theories to wild animal behavior? Predictions arising from dual process theory and Bayesian decision theory.American journal of primatology · 2025Review
- Visuo-spatial compound stimuli discrimination with (Gryllus pennsylvanicus) in two-choices rewarding learning tasks.Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Beyond prediction error: 25 years of modeling the associations formed in the insect mushroom body.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2024Review
- Transitions in cognitive evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Learning with reinforcement prediction errors in a model of the Drosophila mushroom body.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Learning of sameness/difference relationships by honey bees: performance, strategies and ecological context.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2021Review
- Five Breakthroughs: A First Approximation of Brain Evolution From Early Bilaterians to Humans.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2021Article
- What Behavioral Abilities Emerged at Key Milestones in Human Brain Evolution? 13 Hypotheses on the 600-Million-Year Phylogenetic History of Human Intelligence.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Different mechanisms underlie implicit visual statistical learning in honey bees and humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Honeybees solve a multi-comparison ranking task by probability matching.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Ants resort to heuristics when facing relational-learning tasks they cannot solve.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Bumblebees Learn a Relational Rule but Switch to a Win-Stay/Lose-Switch Heuristic After Extensive Training.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Insect-Inspired Sequential Inspection Strategy Enables an Artificial Network of Four Neurons to Estimate Numerosity.iScience · 2019Article
- An Inconvenient Truth: Some Neglected Issues in Invertebrate Learning.Perspectives on behavior science · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The capacity to learn abstract concepts such as 'sameness' and 'difference' is considered a higher-order cognitive function, typically thought to be dependent on top-down neocortical processing. It is therefore surprising that honey bees apparantly have this capacity. Here we report a model of the structures of the honey bee brain that can learn sameness and difference, as well as a range of complex and simple associative learning tasks. Our model is constrained by the known connections and properties of the mushroom body, including the protocerebral tract, and provides a good fit to the learning rates and performances of real bees in all tasks, including learning sameness and difference. The model proposes a novel mechanism for learning the abstract concepts of 'sameness' and 'difference' that is compatible with the insect brain, and is not dependent on top-down or executive control processing.
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