FRANCE: When recalling memories, some individuals can remember items incorrectly. Tiny, buzzing little insects known as bumblebees can be unreliable witnesses too, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology – the first to explore false memories in any non-human animals.
“We discovered that the memory traces for two stimuli can merge, such that features acquired in distinct bouts of training are combined in the animal’s mind. As a result, stimuli that have actually never been viewed before, but are a combination of the features presented in training, are chosen during memory recall,” said Dr Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University of London, who is a co-author on the study.
Dr Chittka and his colleague, Dr Kathryn Hunt, trained bumblebees to expect a reward when visiting a solid yellow artificial flower followed by one with black-and-white rings or vice versa.
During subsequent tests, bumblebees were given a choice between three types of flowers. Two were the yellow and the black-and-white types they’d seen before. The third type of flower had yellow-and-white rings, representing a mixed-up version of the other two. Minutes after the training, they showed a clear preference for the flower that most recently rewarded them. Their short-term memory for the flowers was good.
One or three days later, however, something very different happened when the bumblebees’ memory was put to the test.
Pakistan to get $3b loan from Islamic Trade Financing Corporation
ISLAMABAD: Islamic Trade Financing Corporation (ITFC) to provide Pakistan with a $3 billion loan, according to an official statement released...
