Agitated honeybees exhibit pessimistic cognitive biases

Area of Science:

• Animal behavior
• Neuroscience
• Invertebrate cognition

Background:

• Assessing animal emotions relies on indirect measures like behavior and physiology.
• Negative emotions in humans correlate with cognitive biases, such as pessimism.
• Pessimistic biases have been observed in vertebrates but not invertebrates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if honeybees display a pessimistic cognitive bias when induced into an anxiety-like state.
• To explore the cognitive component of emotion in invertebrates.

Main Methods:

• Honeybees were subjected to vigorous shaking to simulate a predatory attack, inducing an anxiety-like state.
• Decision-making tasks were used to assess the bees' classification of ambiguous stimuli.
• Hemolymph levels of key neurotransmitters (dopamine, octopamine, serotonin) were measured.

Main Results:

• Agitated honeybees were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as predicting punishment.
• Shaken bees showed reduced levels of hemolymph dopamine, octopamine, and serotonin.
• This demonstrates state-dependent modulation of categorization in bees.

Conclusions:

• Honeybees exhibit a pessimistic cognitive bias when in an anxiety-like state.
• This finding suggests that honeybees possess a cognitive component of emotion, comparable to vertebrates.
• Cognitive bias serves as a valid measure for negative emotional states across diverse species.