Like Humans, Bumble Bees May Create Mental Images in Their Brain
by Katherine J. Wu/Smithsonianmag.com
Say a friend or a spouse hands you a bag of groceries and asks you to grab an orange. Because you’ve seen an orange before, you’d probably still be able to dig through the bag without looking and find the citrus fruit using just your hands.
Based on information gleaned through sight alone, our brains are capable of cooking up mental versions of our surroundings with features that can be experienced by all of our senses—not just the one we used to detect an object in the first place.
This impressive, brain-bending feat is called a cross-modal sensory transfer, or the ability to recognize something through one sense, like touch, after experiencing it only through another, like sight. Given its complexity, this trait was long thought to be exclusive to a few cognitive A-listers, including humans and a handful of other vertebrates like rats and dolphins.
But a new study may now be turning that assumption on its head. Even with a brain smaller than a sesame seed, the humble bumblebee appears to pass this test, too—hinting that, like us, these fuzzy, buzzy insects can generate elaborate representations of their surroundings in their minds, and stow them away for…
Carol graduated from Riverside White Cross School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and received her diploma as a registered nurse. She attended Bowling Green State University where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature. She attended the University of Toledo, College of Nursing, and received a Master’s of Nursing Science Degree as an Educator.
She has traveled extensively, is a photographer, and writes on medical issues. Carol has three children RJ, Katherine, and Stephen – one daughter-in-law; Katie – two granddaughters; Isabella Marianna and Zoe Olivia – and one grandson, Alexander Paul. She also shares her life with her husband Gordon Duff, many cats, and two rescues.
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A human could find an object by its description alone even if they had never seen one before.
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