Movement during the acquisition of a visual landmark may be necessary for rapid learning in ants.

Abstract

We conducted laboratory experiments using Japanese carpenter ants (Camponotus japonicus) to investigate whether movement during visual learning can influence the learning performance of ant foragers. We performed three different experiments. In the first experiment, the ants could move freely in a straight maze during the visual learning. The ants in the experiments two and three were fixed to a certain position during the visual learning training. A distinct difference between these two experiments was that the ants in one experiment could perceive an approaching visual stimulus during the training, although they were fixed. After training phases, a Y-maze test was performed. One arm of the Y-maze had a visual stimulus presented to the ants during the training. We found that the ants in the first experiment showed rapid learning and correctly selected the landmark arm. However, the ants in the experiments two and three did not exhibit any preference for the chosen arm. Interestingly, we found differences in the time spent around a certain location in the Y-maze between the experiments two and three. These results suggest that movement during visual learning may influence the rapid learning of ant foragers.