Honey bees use absolute rather than relative numerosity in number discrimination

Various vertebrate species use relative numerosity judgments in comparative assessments of quantities for which they use larger/smaller relationships rather than absolute number. The numerical ability of honey bees shares basic properties with that of vertebrates but their use of absolute or relative numerosity has not been explored. We trained free-flying bees to choose variable images containing 3 dots; one group (‘larger’) was trained to discriminate 3 from 2, while another group (‘smaller’) was trained to discriminate 3 from 4. In both cases, numbers were kept constant but stimulus characteristics and position were varied from trial to trial. Bees were then tested with novel stimuli displaying the previously trained numerosity (3) vs. a novel numerosity (4 for ‘larger’ and 2 for ‘smaller’). Both groups preferred the three-item stimulus, consistently with absolute numerosity. They also exhibited ratio-dependent discrimination of numbers, a property shared by vertebrates, as performan...

多种脊椎动物在数量比较评估中采用相对数量判断（relative numerosity judgments），即利用大小关系而非绝对数量（absolute number）进行判断。蜜蜂的数量能力（numerical ability）与脊椎动物具有基本共性，但它们对绝对或相对数量（absolute or relative numerosity）的使用尚未被研究。我们训练自由飞行的蜜蜂选择包含3个点的可变图像；其中一组（“较大组”）接受区分3和2的训练，另一组（“较小组”）接受区分3和4的训练。在两种情况下，数量保持恒定，但刺激特征和位置在每次试验中均有所不同。随后，我们用呈现先前训练数量（3）与新数量（“较大组”为4，“较小组”为2）的新刺激对蜜蜂进行测试。两组蜜蜂均偏好包含3个项目的刺激，这与绝对数量判断一致。它们还表现出数量的比率依赖性区分能力——这是脊椎动物共有的特性——且其表现...