Bees can recognize human faces

A new study has found honey bees can recognize human faces in photographs and remember for at least 2 days. The results can help create a better facial recognition software, through the study of insect brain.

Many researchers still believe that to be able to identify a human face requires a large brain, and a specialized area is dedicated to processing facial information. The results on bees have upset this notion, the researcher led by Adrian G. Dyer at Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany.

Dyer said that according to what he knew, this was the first time to find a species of invertebrate capable of recognizing the faces of other species. But not all bees can do this, some are confused, although it comes from a lack of experience rather than poor recognition. In the meantime, some people cannot even recognize others. It is prosopagnosia.

In the bee study, Dyer and his two colleagues gave honey bees a look at different faces of people. The photos have the same light, background color and size, including only the face and neck to avoid insects from evaluating the costume. Some people have similar faces.

Researchers have tried to train bees to recognize a man's photo by dropping a drop of sugar next to it. Other photos will be replaced with bitter drops.

Some bees obviously didn't realize that they needed to pay attention to the photo. But 5 bees learned to fly to the picture horizon so they could see clearly , Dyer said. In fact, these bees often hang a few centimeters in front of the photo for a while before deciding where to park.

Bees have learned to distinguish faces with more than 80% accuracy, even when faces are quite similar, no matter where the photo is located. In addition, like humans, bees also perform poorly when the image is placed upside down.

" This is evidence that facial recognition does not need a specialized brain region or advanced nervous system ," the researchers said.

Moreover, two bees tested two days after the first training still retain information in long-term memories. One was 94% on the first day and 79% two days later, the second was reduced from 87% to 76% in the same period.

Dyer explains that bees may not understand what a human face is. Those are just space models, or fancy flowers. Ong is still famous for his ability to identify models to distinguish flowers. As a highly social species, they can also distinguish the same species. But new research has shown that they recognize human faces better than some, with only 1 / 10,000 brain cells.

The results could help researchers develop facial recognition technology at airports and public places. Dyer thinks that if bees can learn how to identify the face of a person in a photo, they can also identify the real person's face.