Bibliographic record
Abstract
The aim of this study was to define the limit of ant cognition, and we examined whether Myrmica rubra ants could use tools or learn to use them. We presented the ants with 1) a piece of mealworm inserted into a small tube tied to a thread that had to be pulled for easy access to the mealworm; 2) a plug that closed the entrance of the ant sugar water tube provided with two push-pieces that had to be pushed to remove the plug from the entrance; and 3) a plug, closing the nest entrance, provided with a thread that had to be pulled to remove the plug. The ants could not use these “proto-tools”. After exposure to proto-tools having been used, some ants interacted with them, shortly, not efficiently. During the first experiment, the ants received the larva progressively inserted further into the tube, and interacted with the proto-tool more than during the two other experiments. Therefore, Myrmica rubra ants might be able to use some proto-tools following long-lasting habituation, imitation or conditioning processes, which would not be a strictly use of tools. Thus, ant cognition in this species extended up to but did not include the use of proto-tools, and at fortiori of sensu stricto tools.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".