The Role of Context in the Inhibitory Conditioning of Honeybees

Abstract

Conditioned inhibition or CI training (A+/AB−) was compared with S− training (A+/B−) in three experiments on proboscis-extension conditioning in harnessed honeybees. The purpose was to test the Rescorla–Wagner assumption, widely credited in the vertebrate literature, that a nonreinforced stimulus acquires inhibitory properties in proportion to the excitatory value of the context in which it is presented. In prior work with free-flying honeybees pretrained with sucrose to come of their own accord to the experimental situation, no differences were found in the consequences of CI and S− training, perhaps because A added little to the excitatory value of the context (already very high) in which B occurred. In the new experiments, with harnessed subjects brought involuntarily into the training situation, negative results again were obtained. The possibility is considered that inhibitory conditioning in honeybees is independent of the excitatory value of the context.