Merging of Long-Term Memories in an Insect
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1
Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
The way in which we process sensory input and our ability to store it in memory and subsequently recall it to enable modification of our behaviour appropriate to the current situation, has long been of interest. The degree to which memories for multiple inputs within the same sensory domain affect the recall of one another has been widely studied in humans, with interference theory and the use of the misinformation effect to produce false memories now widely accepted. However aside from some evidence for the effect of interference on memory, it is still largely unknown to what extent memories for multiple stimuli may affect recall of one another and in what way this may occur in non-human animals. We hypothesise that the memory traces for multiple stimuli may ‘merge’, such that features acquired in distinct bouts of training are combined in an animals mind, so that stimuli that have actually never been viewed before, but are a combination of the features presented in training may be chosen during memory recall. We tested this using the bumblebee Bombus terrestris as a model due to its excellent memory for colours and patterns, such as those of flowers and their capacity to learn multiple stimuli. A reversal learning paradigm was used to train bees to a b/w- patterned stimulus followed by a solid single-colour stimulus. Bees were then tested at one of three time intervals post-learning using both of the original stimuli and a ‘merged’ stimulus, combining elements of both the training stimuli without being identical to either one. Twenty-four hours after training, bees initially selected the last rewarded stimulus and the ’merged’ stimulus with the highest frequency. Our analysis showed that over the course of the test, preference switched from initially being for the last rewarded stimulus, to the ‘merged’ stimulus. This was the result of a genuine confusion or ‘merging’ of the information from the memory traces of both training stimuli and not just due to a generalisation to the training colour. When a different, non-relevant pattern was used in training but the same ‘merged’ stimulus was displayed in the test, bees selected only the last rewarded stimulus: colour with the highest frequency, with no stimulus switching over the course of the test. This is the first example of memory ’merging’ in a non-human animal.
Keywords:
Bumblebee,
Learning,
Memory,
Visual Processing
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for student poster award)
Topic:
Learning, Memory and Behavioral Plasticity
Citation:
Hunt
KL and
Chittka
L
(2012). Merging of Long-Term Memories in an Insect.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00097
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Received:
22 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Miss. Kathryn L Hunt, Queen Mary University of London, London, E1 4NS, United Kingdom, k.l.hunt@qmul.ac.uk