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Title: Reversal Learning in Ant Colonies
Reversal learning has been studied in many species, often as an indicator of their behavioral flexibility. Although this research typically focuses on individuals, groups of social animals, especially social insects, are often considered to have similar learning capabilities. Associative learning has been rarely studied in ant colonies and their behavioral flexibility is still to be assessed. In this study, ant colonies readily learned to discriminate between compound visuotactile cues and subsequently learned their reversal. Reversal performance was maintained after a 5-day retention interval, but not after a 10-day interval. Although this study does not differentiate learning processes at the individual vs. colony levels, it is the first demonstration of reversal learning conducted in ant colonies. These results show that the two-corridor maze can serve to assess colony-level learning in ants. This is a first step to investigate key mechanisms underlying collective learning and cognition in ants.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2118012
PAR ID:
10564780
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
eScholarship
Date Published:
Journal Name:
International Journal of Comparative Psychology
Volume:
37
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2168-3344
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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