  The concerted responses of eusocial insects to environmental stimuli are
often referred to as collective cognition on the level of the colony.To achieve
collective cognitiona group can draw on two different sources: individual
cognitionand the connectivity between individuals.Computation in
neural-networks, for example,is attributedmore tosophisticated communication
schemes than to the complexity of individual neurons. The case of social
insects, however, can be expected to differ. This is since individual insects
are cognitively capable units that are often able to process information that
is directly relevant at the level of the colony.Furthermore, involved
communication patterns seem difficult to implement in a group of insects since
these lack clear network structure.This review discusses links between the
cognition of an individual insect and that of the colony. We provide examples
for collective cognition whose sources span the full spectrum between
amplification of individual insect cognition and emergent group-level
processes.
