“I’ll
Bee there for you: Do Insects Feel Emotions?” was a very interesting article
that explored the idea that insects may have emotions and feelings. The article
used experiments and quotes all from experts to explain reactions in insects
not uncommon to reactions mammals would experience. The article explains how most people see insects as
unthinking machines but if it could be proved that they had feelings people
could see them in a whole new light. I already have started to think about them
differently and wonder how their minds work.
The article
describes an experiment by biologist Clint Perry at Queen Mary University of
London that attempts to find how much bees feel. In the experiment the bees
were conditioned to think certain blue flowers would hold a tasty treat for them. They then
gave half the bees a sixty percent sugar solution and let them loose in a
location with the blue flowers. The bees that had been given the sugar flew
faster to the flowers than the ones that were not given any. The sugar amped
them up and made them more optimistic that there would be a treat for them in
the blue flowers. The article described this as optimism bias, like how an
infant will cry less when offered a sweet treat, or an adults mood will improve
with a bit of candy.
To
make sure it was their emotional states and not a sugar high the researchers
preformed the experiment again this time with a variety of different colored
flowers. The optimistic effect only continued with the blue flowers, if they
didn’t hope for a treat they would fly just as slow as the ones without the
sugar solution. In the next experiment the researchers simulated a predator
attack, the same optimism prevailed. The ones that had been given sugar resumed
foraging fairly quickly while the others where more cautious for longer. In the
final experiment the researches gave the bees a drug that disrupted receptors
for dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to motivation and reward. The optimism
bias disappeared, the same thing that would occur in a mammal.
The
article quotes Katy Prudic, an entomologist from University of Arizona, to
better explain how insects are viewed by people “because they’re built so
differently we tend to downplay their emotional state, probably because we don’t
see it in the same way we would with a dog or a cat or a cow.” The article then
states that there is actually no intrinsic reason that insects wouldn’t
experience emotions the real question is whether they have feelings, which are
the subjective experiences of emotions. When something happens to you your body
has an emotional response you breath harder or your pupils dilate, if you feel
sad or scared because of what’s happened then it is a feeling and not just
emotion. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at University of Southern California
explains that “feeling implies the presence of a mind and a mental experience,
or consciousness. I have every reason to believe that invertebrates not only
have emotions but also the possibility of feeling those emotions.”
It’s interesting
to think about how much more insects might feel than what we think. Its
interesting too to think about how people might react if it could be proven
that they really do think. Would people’s views change? Would they still just
be pests? Would people try to protect them the same way that some people try to
protect animals? Would it then be inhumane to kill them? However people might
react, it’s amazing to think about how complex the minds of insects may really
be.
To find the full article visit:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/i-ll-bee-there-for-you-do-insects-feel-emotions/
If insects have feelings, then movies like "Bee Movie" or "A Bugs Life" could actually be quite accurate in describing how insects feel. This article caught my interest at higher levels once I started reading about the expirements that were conducted to try and trace feeling and emotion to insects. It amazes me that even with a 60% concentration, bees responded with faster movements towards the blue flowers. If scientists are able to prove that insects have feelings and emotions, the next step would be to figure out if the emotions resemble humans or other animals.
ReplyDeleteTL
I agree it would be interesting to see what types of emotions they felt and how strongly. It would be interesting to see if they didn't feel in the same ways that animals or humans do but in a completely new way exclusive to insects.
ReplyDeleteKI
This article actually stirs up a lot of emotion in myself. I had thought about if insects had emotions before, but it really brings it to a whole new level when research like this is done. If insects could feel emotion, at least like other mammals besides humans, then the carelessness that most humans give to insects should most definitely be changed.
ReplyDeleteM.E
very outside of the box thinking on this article. i guess we've all grown up thinking the same thing and assuming the same thing. Bees have similar effects to mammals. how far does this chain of emotion extend to? living organisms that have brains? or smaller?
ReplyDeleteMC
as far as I believe anything with a brain will fill emotion, but you can't humanize any animal whether it be a dog, cow, ant, all brains are going to have the same parts and work the same. where most people co fuse themselves is when they say meat animals understand what's going on when it goes to slaughter. or things similar. cows run down a chute because that's the sensible thing to do it moves away from pressure just like every other living thing. K.F.
ReplyDeleteIf this research was to become widely publicized, I do think people’s attitudes towards certain insects would drastically change. I read an article about a man that became close to fly after he had saved it instead of killing it. It lived in his house, would fly onto him and let him stroke it, and he claimed that he would even feed it. Whether or not the article was true, I’ve never looked at flies the same way after reading it. Hopefully, scientists can use the article you wrote about to make the public and agencies like PETA more concerned about endangered insects, like bees. Many people may not care about the environmental impact their extinction could have, but I think a lot more people would care about bee conservation if they knew that bees likely feel some form of sadness.
ReplyDeleteCZ
Interesting article. I have never thought that insects may have feelings. I wonder if bees are the smartest, therefore, have more feelings than other insects given the complexity of their societies. I still won't think twice about killing a spider though. SRH
ReplyDeleteIts a little hard to change my views on insects even knowing they have emotions, I'm sure some people might see it in another light but i was just wondering if this only helps PETA supports or people go vegan/vegeterian and care more for animals
ReplyDeleteRG
How cool to think that insects do in fact have emotions being that they are motivated and that “disappointment” also is part of their nature. Could we as humans use these findings to our benefit in how we deal with our emotions? –JA
ReplyDelete