>> Researchers have trained honeybees to match a character to a specific quantity, revealing they are able to learn that a symbol represents a numerical amount.
I don't know if this is very convincing. From what I see in the images shown in the article, the "specific quantities" are represented by different arrangements of various symbols- squares, stars etc.
The article doesn't say whether these arrangements were randomised in each image.
For instance - the number "3" could be _always_ associated with the same arrangement of any symbol. Say, a triangle formed by three identical symbol. In that case it would be impossible to know whether the bees learned to count the shapes or just identify their arrangment. Learning to identify a triangle doesn't say anything about the ability to identify quantities.
The fact that neither of the two groups trained on the two different tasks (character-to-quantity and quantity-to-character) could generalise their learning to the opposite task also doesn't bode well. It is exactly what you would expect to see if the setup for each task had some other, uncontrolled for, variable that the bees "overfitted" to, rather than learning what is theorised they did learn.
> The fact that neither of the two groups trained on the two different tasks (character-to-quantity and quantity-to-character) could generalize their learning to the opposite task also doesn't bode well.
I thought about it, and have found a similar phenomenon in my own experience. English is not my native language, I learned English mostly by reading books in English. I knew a loads of words from a several of authors and could grasp any grammatical construct easily. But I had a big problem with speaking or writing: I couldn't find words to express myself. I know words that means what I want. When I meet words, I could connect them to their meaning easily, but the reverse doesn't work so good. With a practice it becomes easier, but I guess I have to use a word to express myself at least once to master this word to a point, when I could remember it when it is needed.
There is one more detail, maybe unrelated, I have a great troubles when I need translate English into Russian (my native language). I understand an English phrase, but I couldn't find Russian words to match English ones. Though it is an easier task than to find an English word which I know but haven't used before. This task also benefits from practice.
Mind is a complex machine, sometimes two-way associative link could be established only by training this link in both directions.
>> I knew a loads of words from a several of authors and could grasp any grammatical construct easily. But I had a big problem with speaking or writing: I couldn't find words to express myself.
That happens, for sure, but we know that humans can also perform this task well. So that is maybe not such a good example? We know that humans can generalise learning very well, in general.
I mean, just looking at a single person's ability at a task doesn't help us understand the limits of human ability on that task.
> The article doesn't say whether these arrangements were randomised in each image.
It is a popular science retelling a story. In the original scientific article we can read
We used sets of stimuli with controlled surface area (set 1) and equal element size area (set 2) with achromatic properties (black elements on white background; electronic supplementary material, figure S1). The choice of stimuli for each trial was pseudo-randomized with regards to set (1 or 2), shape and arrangement of elements. Thus, bees were trained on both set 1 and set 2.
In Group 1, this test consisted of showing a sign as the sample and then a randomized set of abstract objects not previously seen by bees (set 3: random set with chromatic properties).
Your proposed possible mistake is a way too stupid for a modern experimental psychology.
> For instance - the number "3" could be _always_ associated with the same arrangement of any symbol. Say, a triangle formed by three identical symbol.
It is more interesting, I believe. I had not read the original article thoroughly enough to find out could this be as you describe. There is a figures with some stimuli, but I'm not sure that it contains all the stimuli (to be sure it needs more reading, not just skimming).
Maybe this issue needs more testing, but in any case it is impossible to catch all the mistakes like that. For example, our ability to see a figure formed by a changing symbols, it is a property of our visual processing. Bees could have some properties which we do not have, and it could be that their properties could allow them to see some shapes formed by symbols, where we could see just randomly placed symbols.
> The fact that neither of the two groups trained on the two different tasks (character-to-quantity and quantity-to-character) could generalise their learning to the opposite task also doesn't bode well. It is exactly what you would expect to see if the setup for each task had some other, uncontrolled for, variable that the bees "overfitted" to, rather than learning what is theorised they did learn.
Yes, it is the most interesting part, because it goes perpendicular to a common sense, and thus gives a direction to a subsequent research. It always work like this: an experiment (a good one does) reveals something about nature, but poses new questions. Then researchers all over the world start to spend their grants on a sequels for the first research. At some point the number of articles becomes overwhelming, and several especially proficient scientists read all of them, studying methodology, combining data from different research into one big data set, making statistics, and finally they'd write a meta-research with a few hundreds of references to experimental articles, trying to make sense of data.
Media just cherry-picking articles with a clickbait titles, and makes them even more clickbaity. The most interesting articles for a newcomer would be a meta-research articles, which do no sparky experiments itself, but analyze all the data they could reach.
>> In Group 1, this test consisted of showing a sign as the sample and then a randomized set of abstract objects not previously seen by bees (set 3: random set with chromatic properties).
Thanks for the clarification.
It's clear you find this subject very interesting. I guess I do too, but I'm very skeptical of claims like in the above article. I think it's very easy to fall prey to various cognitive biases while carrying out this sort of research, particularly when it comes time to interpret results.
This recent Aeon article seems to sum up my concerns (I am not affiliated with Aeon or the author of the article in any way):
Not exactly. Non-human psychology is called ethology[1]. There are some differences (you cannot ask animal to fill a questionnaire or ask how it feels), but when it comes to an experimental psychology it is almost the same.
I don't know if this is very convincing. From what I see in the images shown in the article, the "specific quantities" are represented by different arrangements of various symbols- squares, stars etc.
The article doesn't say whether these arrangements were randomised in each image.
For instance - the number "3" could be _always_ associated with the same arrangement of any symbol. Say, a triangle formed by three identical symbol. In that case it would be impossible to know whether the bees learned to count the shapes or just identify their arrangment. Learning to identify a triangle doesn't say anything about the ability to identify quantities.
The fact that neither of the two groups trained on the two different tasks (character-to-quantity and quantity-to-character) could generalise their learning to the opposite task also doesn't bode well. It is exactly what you would expect to see if the setup for each task had some other, uncontrolled for, variable that the bees "overfitted" to, rather than learning what is theorised they did learn.