Figure 2
Choice and discrimination learning tasks in the VR setup. (A) Experiment 1: Quantification of the spontaneous phototactic responses of bees towards a red cuboid against the absence of an equivalent stimulus in the symmetric position (dashed cuboid). Choice of the red cuboid was recorded if the bee reached a virtual area of a radius of 3 cm centered on the cuboid and fixed it frontally. (B) Experiments 2 and 3: Color discrimination learning with a green and a blue cuboid. One cuboid was rewarded with sucrose solution and the other punished with either quinine solution (Experiment 2) or saline solution (Experiment 3) delivered by the experimenter. A choice was recorded when the bee reached an area of a radius of 3 cm centered on the cuboid and fixed it frontally. The cuboid image was then frozen during 8 s and the corresponding reinforcement (US) was delivered. (C) Experimental schedule of color learning experiments (Experiments 2 and 3). Bees were trained along 10 conditioning trials that lasted a maximum of 1 min and that were spaced by 1 min (intertrial interval). After the end of conditioning, and following an additional interval of 1 min, bees were tested in extinction conditions with the two colored cuboids during 1 min.
