Multimodal signals enhance decision making in foraging bumble-bees Export

@article{citeulike:3383640, abstract = {10.1098/rspb.2007.1176 Multimodal signals are common in nature and have recently attracted considerable attention. Despite this interest, their function is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that multimodal signals improve decision making in receivers by influencing the speed and the accuracy of their decisions. We trained bumble-bees () to discriminate between artificial flowers that differed either in one modality, visual (specifically, shape) or olfactory, or in two modalities, visual plus olfactory. Bees trained on multimodal flowers learned the rewarding flowers faster than those trained on flowers that differed only in the visual modality and, in extinction trials, visited the previously rewarded flowers at a higher rate than bees trained on unimodal flowers. Overall, bees showed a speed\^{a}€“accuracy trade-off; bees that made slower decisions achieved higher accuracy levels. Foraging on multimodal flowers did not affect the slope of the speed\^{a}€“accuracy relationship, but resulted in a higher intercept, indicating that multimodal signals were associated with consistently higher accuracy across range of decision speeds. Our results suggest that bees make more effective decisions when flowers signal in more than one modality, and confirm the importance of studying signal components together rather than separately.}, author = {Kulahci, Ipek G. and Dornhaus, Anna and Papaj, Daniel R.}, citeulike-article-id = {3383640}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1176}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1636/797.abstract}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1636/797.full.pdf}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18198150}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=18198150}, day = {7}, doi = {10.1098/rspb.2007.1176}, journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}, keywords = {bees, multimodal}, month = {April}, number = {1636}, pages = {797--802}, posted-at = {2008-10-07 16:42:36}, priority = {4}, title = {Multimodal signals enhance decision making in foraging bumble-bees}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1176}, volume = {275}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:3383640 L3 - citeulike-article-id:3383640 N2 - 10.1098/rspb.2007.1176 Multimodal signals are common in nature and have recently attracted considerable attention. Despite this interest, their function is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that multimodal signals improve decision making in receivers by influencing the speed and the accuracy of their decisions. We trained bumble-bees () to discriminate between artificial flowers that differed either in one modality, visual (specifically, shape) or olfactory, or in two modalities, visual plus olfactory. Bees trained on multimodal flowers learned the rewarding flowers faster than those trained on flowers that differed only in the visual modality and, in extinction trials, visited the previously rewarded flowers at a higher rate than bees trained on unimodal flowers. Overall, bees showed a speed–accuracy trade-off; bees that made slower decisions achieved higher accuracy levels. Foraging on multimodal flowers did not affect the slope of the speed–accuracy relationship, but resulted in a higher intercept, indicating that multimodal signals were associated with consistently higher accuracy across range of decision speeds. Our results suggest that bees make more effective decisions when flowers signal in more than one modality, and confirm the importance of studying signal components together rather than separately. IS - 1636 JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences EP - 802 TI - Multimodal signals enhance decision making in foraging bumble-bees VL - 275 SP - 797 KW - bees KW - multimodal AU - Kulahci, Ipek AU - Dornhaus, Anna AU - Papaj, Daniel PY - 2008/04/07/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1176 ER -