Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees - PubMed
3 hours ago
- #rhythm perception
- #cross-modal learning
- #bumble bees
- Abstract rhythm perception, key to human music, dance, and speech, is demonstrated in bumble bees for the first time.
- Bees learned to discriminate arbitrary flashing light sequences, recognizing them at new tempi and transferring learning across modalities (vibrational to light patterns).
- This suggests insect brains can encode and generalize complex temporal patterns, indicating deep evolutionary roots for domain-general rhythm cognition across animals.