A tiny brain no bigger than a sesame seed may hold the key to transforming artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, thanks to groundbreaking research revealing how bees use their flight movements to enhance learning and recognition.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have uncovered that bees don’t just passively see the world – they actively shape their visual perception through body movements during flight.
By building a computational model that mimics a bee’s brain, researchers have demonstrated how the insect’s unique flight patterns generate distinct neural signals, enabling it to identify complex visual patterns, such as flowers or even human faces, with remarkable accuracy.
“In this study we’ve successfully demonstrated that even the tiniest of brains can leverage movement to perceive and understand the world around them,’ said Professor James Marshall, a senior author on the study.
“This shows us that a small, efficient system – albeit the result of millions of years of evolution – can perform computations vastly more complex than we previously thought possible,” he added.
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