ArticleeLife2022
Bumblebees retrieve only the ordinal ranking of foraging options when comparing memories obtained in distinct settings.
Article in eLife, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Attention modulates value normalization in human reinforcement learning by shaping reward encoding.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Reference-point dependent reinforcement learning in humans and rats.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Context induces distortions in value representations across multiple elicitation methods and learning modalities.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Human reinforcement learning processes and biases: computational characterization and possible applications to behavioral public policy.Mind & society · 2025Article
- Relative Value Encoding in Large Language Models: A Multi-Task, Multi-Model Investigation.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- Comparing experience- and description-based economic preferences across 11 countries.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Learning modifies attention during bumblebee visual search.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Outcome context-dependence is not WEIRD: Comparing reinforcement- and description-based economic preferences worldwide.Research square · 2023Article
- Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
Are animals' preferences determined by absolute memories for options (e.g. reward sizes) or by their remembered ranking (better/worse)? The only studies examining this question suggest humans and starlings utilise memories for both absolute and relative information. We show that bumblebees' learned preferences are based only on memories of ordinal comparisons. A series of experiments showed that after learning to discriminate pairs of different flowers by sucrose concentration, bumblebees preferred flowers (in novel pairings) with (1) higher ranking over equal absolute reward, (2) higher ranking over higher absolute reward, and (3) identical qualitative ranking but different quantitative ranking equally. Bumblebees used absolute information in order to rank different flowers. However, additional experiments revealed that, even when ranking information was absent (i.e. bees learned one flower at a time), memories for absolute information were lost or could no longer be retrieved after at most 1 hr. Our results illuminate a divergent mechanism for bees (compared to starlings and humans) of learned preferences that may have arisen from different adaptations to their natural environment.
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