Evolution of Aversive Information Processing: A Temporal Trade-Off Hypothesis

Abstract

There is often a temporal relation in survival probabilities in life-threatening situations such as predator-prey encounters. As a situation intensifies or becomes more immediately dangerous, reflex responses usually dominate behavior, resulting in there being less time available to gather information for more complex processing by higher brain substrates. The only information to form a memory of such a threatening experience may be some neural code for 'avoid' (or a negative emotional attribute) and the context in which the experience has occurred. Hence, memory for aversive experiences may be more labile while reflexive responses to danger become much less labile to experimental manipulation as the severity of the threat increases. Natural selection may have preferentially acted on escape and avoidance responses such that plasticity to make decisions concerning other options in increasingly dangerous arenas may be much more limited. The possibility that time becomes a trade-off in an organism's attempt to more fully evaluate characteristics of a perceived threat underlies the 'temporal trade-off hypothesis'.

Effects of habitat-related visibility on escape decisions of the Spanish Terrapin Mauremys leprosa

“…Therefore, we expected that turtles would delay escape when on the opposite bank, but we found the opposite trend, which apparently contradicts the optimal escape theory (Ydenberg and Dill, 1986). However, if turtles flee as soon as the predator is detected (Ellis, 1982), turtles on the opposite bank might see approaching predators more easily and hence flee sooner, even though the approach distance is greater. Alternatively, if turtles judged real predators as being able to easily fly or cross to the other side, their perceived risk level would be the same irrespective of which bank the predator approached from.…”

Why skill matters

“…If a potentially harmful object appears, one would first look at it [109]. One then needs to escape or fight with the object [110]. It would be useful to develop skills to detect such harmful objects quickly (object skill) and escape or fight quickly (action skill).…”

Accelerated nervous system development contributes to behavioral efficiency in the laboratory mouse: A behavioral review and theoretical proposal

“…In this regard, it may not be surprising that wild rats and mice are more similar to each with respect to defensive behavior than are their domesticated counterparts: A domesticated rat or mouse making a mistake is less likely to end up as someone's meal. Thus, the degree of information processing about the potential danger of a situation is likely to be limited in wild animals, as they are more likely to engage in re¯exive responses that have been proven successful over evolutionary time due to the effects of natural selection (Ellis, 1982). With domestication, and hence, the loosening up of these re¯exive relationships, it could be argued that species differences in being able to engage in more complex information processing are likely to be revealed.…”