Paper wasps form abstract concept of 'same and different'

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Ethology
• Animal Behavior
• Comparative Psychology

Background:

• Abstract concept formation is linked to advanced cognition, prompting research into which species can learn abstract rules.
• The same-different concept, classifying stimuli as identical or distinct, is a key indicator of abstract thought.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) can learn and apply a same-different concept.
• To determine if this concept can be generalized to novel stimuli and across different sensory modalities.

Main Methods:

• A simultaneous two-item same-different task was employed.
• Wasps were trained with visual stimuli (colors) and tested on their ability to generalize to new colors and odors.

Main Results:

• Paper wasps successfully learned the general concept of sameness or difference.
• They applied this concept to novel stimuli within the same sensory modality (new colors).
• Crucially, wasps transferred the learned rules to stimuli in a different sensory modality (odors).

Conclusions:

• Polistes fuscatus can classify stimuli based on relational properties, demonstrating abstract concept learning.
• The findings suggest that abstract concept learning may be more prevalent in the animal kingdom than previously assumed.
• This study expands our understanding of cognitive abilities in insects.