在这项工作中，研究组展示了大黄蜂也形成了抽象的节奏表征。自由飞行的蜜蜂学会了区分两个任意重复的闪光序列，平衡以排除任何局部线索的主题。蜜蜂成功地以新的、更快的和更慢的节奏识别了这些习得的节奏模式。在振动模式下训练的蜜蜂将他们的学习转化为等效的闪光模式，展示了跨模态节奏感知。这些发现表明，昆虫的大脑可以编码和概括任意复杂的时间模式，这表明抽象的节奏感知可以从相对简单的神经结构中产生，并指出了跨动物的领域-一般节奏认知的深层进化根源。
据介绍，灵活、抽象的节奏感知支撑着人类的音乐、舞蹈和语言，但到目前为止，它只在少数鸟类和哺乳动物中得到证实。
附：英文原文
Title: Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees
Author: Zijie Zeng, Andrew B. Barron, Fei Peng, Cwyn Solvi
Issue&Volume: 2026-04-02
Abstract: Flexible, abstract rhythm perception underpins human music, dance, and speech, but thus far, it has only been demonstrated in a few birds and mammals. In this work, we show that bumble bees also form robust abstract rhythm representations. Free-flying bees learned to discriminate two arbitrary repeating flashing light sequences, balanced to preclude the use of any local cues. Bees successfully recognized these learned rhythmic patterns at new, faster, and slower tempi. Bees trained on vibrational patterns transferred their learning to equivalent flashing light patterns, demonstrating cross-modal rhythm perception. These findings suggest that an insect brain can encode and generalize arbitrary complex temporal patterns, which suggests that abstract rhythm perception can emerge from relatively simple neural architectures and points to deep evolutionary roots for a domain‐general rhythm cognition across animals.
DOI: adz2894
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz2894