Discovery of a Visual System - The Honeybee

Bees have a unique vision that is adapted to the recognition of places, not things. This book explores the history of how bee vision came to be understood, with an account of a century of neglect of old experimental results, errors of interpretation, sharp disagreements, and failures of the scientific method. The design of experiments and methods of making inferences from observations are also critically examined, with the conclusion that scientists are often hesitant, imperfect, and misleading, ignore the work of others, and fail to consider alternative explanations.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 296 pages
\n Publication date: 23 May 2019
\n Publisher: CABI Publishing
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This book stands as the sole account of the visual perception experienced by honeybees. While bees possess the ability to detect certain visual elements like edges and colors, there is no evidence to suggest that they reconstruct patterns or assemble features to form objects. Bees can perceive motion but lack the ability to comprehend its nature, and they certainly do not recognize objects based on their shapes. Despite their limited cognitive capabilities, bees possess remarkable visual acuity, enabling them to navigate and locate food with a mere fraction of the brain's processing power. Bee vision, therefore, holds significance in the development of simple artificial visual systems, such as those employed in mobile robots.

The surprising revelation is that bee vision is specifically tailored for recognizing places rather than objects. In this comprehensive volume, Adrian Horridge delves into the intriguing and contentious history of how bee vision has been understood, tracing a century of neglect, misinterpretation, sharp disagreements, and failures of the scientific method. He critically examines the design of experiments and the methods employed for drawing inferences from observations, ultimately concluding that scientists often exhibit hesitation, imperfection, and misleading behavior. They tend to ignore the work of others, fail to consider alternative explanations, and follow an erratic path toward understanding. This narrative, particularly captivating for those interested in the workings of science, particularly in the fields of insect vision and invertebrate sensory systems, offers a fascinating glimpse into the complexities of scientific inquiry.

\n Weight: 898g\n
Dimension: 180 x 252 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781789240894\n \n