Bumblebees can create mental imagery, a 'building block of consciousness', study suggests
ABC said:Humans are one of very few animals known to be able to recognise objects across senses.
For instance, if we know what a jar of honey looks like we could probably find it by touch alone from the top shelf of the pantry.
Scientists think this ability — called cross-modal object recognition — exists at least partly because we are able to imagine the object in our brain, a skill that is a "building block" of consciousness.
But now a team of scientists believe they have evidence bumblebees can also create mental imagery, they report in the journal Science.
The tiny insects are able to recognise objects by sight that they've only previously felt, and vice versa, according to study co-author Cwyn Solvi from the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Macquarie University.
"Many have thought that bees' small brains simply react to stimuli and output motor behaviours without any internal representations of the world," Dr Solvi said.
The question now is whether we have underestimated the intelligence of bees, or overestimated how complex a brain needs to be to perform cross-modal recognition.
The researchers had previously found that bees can learn by watching other bees, and can show positive emotional states, but even they were impressed by this latest feat.
"We already knew that bees were pretty clever. But nonetheless, our new results surprised even us," Dr Solvi said.
Other research led by Adrian Dyer from RMIT, who was not involved in the latest study, has shown that bees are capable of recognising human faces and doing basic calculations.
"Two-plus-three may seem trivial, but it's the 'plus' that takes memory," Dr Dyer said.
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