[PHILOS-L] PhilSciCog - Catherine Macri - Exploring dimensions of consciousness in honey bees : awareness and emotion-like states
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Nicolas Millot
Apr 8, 2026, 1:24:10 PM (11 hours ago) Apr 8
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Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the next PhilSciCog session, which will take place on April 16, 2026, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. (CET) at the IHPST (https://ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/en).
Note that the session will be held in hybrid format and can therefore be followed via the following Zoom link : https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/95061086376?pwd=K2ZpOGRBeUdNbkJvVUM3M3BRVFdCdz09
Meeting ID: 950 6108 6376
Passcode: 535047
We are delighted to welcome Catherine Macri, PhD (Sorbonne Université), for a talk entitled :
Exploring dimensions of consciousness in honey bees: awareness and emotion-like states
Abstract :
Whether non-human animals, and particularly invertebrates, possess components of consciousness remains a central and controversial question. The honey bee (Apis mellifera), an insect with sophisticated cognitive abilities, provides a powerful model to address this issue experimentally. In my PhD thesis, I investigated whether honey bees exhibit two key dimensions often associated with consciousness: awareness and emotion-like central states. To assess awareness, we examined olfactory trace conditioning, a learning paradigm that requires maintaining a stimulus representation across a temporal gap and, which in humans, depends on awareness. Bees successfully learned both delay and trace odor–sugar associations, but trace conditioning led to weaker acquisition and memory. Crucially, trace, but not delay, conditioning was selectively disrupted by visual and mechanosensory distractors and by pharmacological blockade of serotonergic signaling. A computational model of the bee olfactory network supported the role of serotonin in bridging temporal gaps, indicating a selective engagement of higher-order cognitive processes under temporal uncertainty. Increasing task demands using olfactory reversal learning further revealed that distractors differentially impaired performance in delay and trace paradigms, consistent with disrupted attentional reallocation and contingency awareness during trace learning. To investigate emotion-like states, we studied bees subjected to aversive conditioning. Bees that learned to associate a visual cue with an electric shock displayed coordinated behavioral, physiological, and neurochemical changes upon perceiving the shock-predictive stimulus. Specifically, they expressed reduced locomotion, increased thigmotaxis, elevated respiration and body temperature, and modified biogenic amine levels in brain tissues in anticipation of the shock. These convergent and consistent responses suggest an integrative internal state analogous to fear. Together, these findings provide converging evidence that honey bees engage awareness-like mechanisms and exhibit emotion-like central states, suggesting that core features of consciousness may have deeper evolutionary origins than previously assumed.
Whether non-human animals, and particularly invertebrates, possess components of consciousness remains a central and controversial question. The honey bee (Apis mellifera), an insect with sophisticated cognitive abilities, provides a powerful model to address this issue experimentally. In my PhD thesis, I investigated whether honey bees exhibit two key dimensions often associated with consciousness: awareness and emotion-like central states. To assess awareness, we examined olfactory trace conditioning, a learning paradigm that requires maintaining a stimulus representation across a temporal gap and, which in humans, depends on awareness. Bees successfully learned both delay and trace odor–sugar associations, but trace conditioning led to weaker acquisition and memory. Crucially, trace, but not delay, conditioning was selectively disrupted by visual and mechanosensory distractors and by pharmacological blockade of serotonergic signaling. A computational model of the bee olfactory network supported the role of serotonin in bridging temporal gaps, indicating a selective engagement of higher-order cognitive processes under temporal uncertainty. Increasing task demands using olfactory reversal learning further revealed that distractors differentially impaired performance in delay and trace paradigms, consistent with disrupted attentional reallocation and contingency awareness during trace learning. To investigate emotion-like states, we studied bees subjected to aversive conditioning. Bees that learned to associate a visual cue with an electric shock displayed coordinated behavioral, physiological, and neurochemical changes upon perceiving the shock-predictive stimulus. Specifically, they expressed reduced locomotion, increased thigmotaxis, elevated respiration and body temperature, and modified biogenic amine levels in brain tissues in anticipation of the shock. These convergent and consistent responses suggest an integrative internal state analogous to fear. Together, these findings provide converging evidence that honey bees engage awareness-like mechanisms and exhibit emotion-like central states, suggesting that core features of consciousness may have deeper evolutionary origins than previously assumed.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Nicolas Millot and Florian Moullard, PhD students in philosophy of science at Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University
Héloïse Athéa, postdoctoral researcher in philosophy of science
The PhilSciCog Seminar : the seminar aims to provide a forum for discussion on key research topics in the philosophy of (neuro)cognitive science, covering issues encountered in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of biology, as well as the epistemology of cognitive (neuro)science and mathematical cognition. With a view to interdisciplinarity, the seminar welcomes both philosophers and scientists.
2025/2026 session schedule :
- November 27, 2025: Pamela Lyon, University of Adelaide, Australia. Exceptionally via Zoom uniquely, 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. - "Autopoiesis and knowing: first principles of cognition »
- December 11, 2025: Rafael Nuñez, (UCSD, USA / ETH Zürich, Switzerland) - "On the nature and origin of numbers: When philosophy meets (or should meet) evolution and the cognitive science".
- February 12, 2026: Stéphane Charpier (Sorbonne Université, France) - "La conscience phénoménale est-elle un épiphénomène ?"
- March 26, 2026: Véronique Izard ((Centre de neurosciences intégratives et de cognition, Paris, France) - "Cognitive foundations of geometry.”
- April 16, 2026 (4:00-6:00 p.m.) : Catherine Macri (Centre de Neuroscience de Sorbonne Université, Paris, France) - "Exploring dimensions of consciousness in honey bees: awareness and emotion-like states"
- May 13 2026 : Marie Pelé (Anthropo Lab, Lille, France) - "Dessine-moi un mouton : étude du dessin chez les primates humains et non humains"
- June 4, 2026: Catherine Belzung (Université de Tours, France) - TBA
- June 23, 2026: Adrian Currie (University of Exeter, England) - TBA
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