Signaling against the Wind: Modifying Motion-Signal Structure in Response to Increased Noise

Peters, Richard; Hemmi, Jan M.; Zeil, Jochen

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.035

Cited by 99 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The swaying, stop-start motion of a chameleon or praying mantis seems to mimic the rocking of leaves and twigs in the breeze, and the lack of consistent linear motion towards the prey may itself reduce salience. Analysis of the movements of an Australian lizard, the jacky dragon Amphibolurus muricatus, shows that when it signals to other members of its species, its motion statistics move well outside the background distribution, but when not signalling its own distribution falls within that of the background (Peters & Evans 2003;Peters et al 2007). Cuttlefish reduce the contrast in their body patterns during motion (Zylinski et al 2009c), perhaps because the high contrast edges seen in disruptive patterning are more easily detected in motion.…”

Section: Concealing Motionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Osorio

Cuthill²

2014

Oxford Handbooks Online

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms AbstractCamouflage allows the bearer to 'hide in plain sight' by means of colour patterns that interfere with detection. Basic principles of camouflage that were proposed over a century ago by artists and natural historians have informed recent studies that seek to tease apart the different mechanisms by which camouflage exploits perception. The probability of detection is lowered by matching background colours and textures or using sharply contrasting colours to disrupt the body's outline or salient features such as eyes. The effectiveness of much animal camouflage against humans, even though the patterns evolved to fool different viewers, suggests that diverse visual systems share similar principles of perceptual organization. As such, animal camouflage might reveal universal principles that apply regardless of retinal organisation and neural architecture. We review the recent literature on animal camouflage in this light, from experimental studies of texture perception by fish and cephalopod molluscs, to the visual effects used to defeat figure ground segregation of 2-D and 3-D objects in birds and mammals.

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Section: Concealing Motionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Osorio

Cuthill²

2014

Oxford Handbooks Online

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“…The strategy may be common; possible examples include the simple introductory notes of territorial calls in many birds (10,12,13), initial low frequency components of frog mating calls (14), and barks before howls in coyotes (15). Surprisingly, however, the assumption that putative alerting components facilitate signal detection has rarely been confirmed (11,16), and the explicit predictions that alert use will be more prevalent and more effective in noisy environments have never been tested.…”

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confidence: 99%

Alert signals enhance animal communication in “noisy” environments

Ord

Stamps²

2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

110

133

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Environmental noise that reduces the probability that animals will detect communicative signals poses a special challenge for longrange communication. The application of signal-detection theory to animal communication lead to the prediction that signals directed at distant receivers in noisy environments will begin with conspicuous "alerting" components to attract the attention of receivers, before delivery of the information-rich portion of the signal. Whether animals actually adopt this strategy is not clear, despite suggestions that alerts might exist in a variety of taxa. By using a combination of behavioral observations and experimental manipulations with robotic lizard "playbacks," we show that free-living territorial Anolis lizards add an "alert" to visual displays when communicating to distant receivers in situations of poor visibility, and that these introductory alerts in turn enhance signal detection in adverse signaling conditions. Our results show that Anolis lizards are able to evaluate environmental conditions that affect the degradation of long-distance signals and adjust their behavior accordingly. This study demonstrates that free-living animals enhance the efficiency of long-range communication through the modulation of signal design and the facultative addition of an alert. Our findings confirm that alert signals are an important strategy for communicating in "noisy" conditions and suggest a reexamination of the existence of alerts in other animals relying on long-range communication.animal signals ͉ habitat noise ͉ robotic lizard playbacks ͉ tropical lizard S ocial communication requires that signals be successively transmitted through the environment and detected by receivers. How animals minimize the effects of environmental degradation on signal propagation is a classic focus of communication research (1-3) and is often central to understanding the way animals communicate (4-6) and interact with each other (7-9). Signal detection theory (10) and empirical studies (3) show that simple signal components suffer lower rates of environmental attenuation than more complex, information-rich components. This results in a fundamental tradeoff in the evolution of signal design. A solution would be the production of a composite signal beginning with a simple conspicuous component (an "alert") that attracts the attention of a receiver, which is then followed by a more detailed "message" component

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“…Changes in the spectral environment as a consequence of habitat structure, diurnal and seasonal variation in illumination, and meteorological conditions are particularly influential in mediating the detectability of static visual signals, and often influence the spatial distribution of communities and microhabitat selection (Endler and Thery, 1996;Leal and Fleishman, 2002). In the case of visual motion signals, the principal source of noise is the movement of windblown plants (Fleishman, 1988a,b;Peters et al, 2007;Peters, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the influence of habitat structure on motion signaling can be inferred by examining the selective use of motor patterns across habitat types , or prevailing environmental conditions (Ord and Stamps, 2008), it does not directly compare the structure of signal and noise. Environmental effects can also be subtle and difficult to infer from broad scale investigations yet impose considerable constraints on effective signaling that lead signalers to modify display structure (Ord et al, 2007(Ord et al, , 2016Peters et al, 2007). Clearly, to understand in detail the motion signals of animals we need to quantify both the signal and noise in such a way that they are comparable at relevant timescales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, Peters and Evans (2003) employed the same methodology to compare velocity signatures from lizard signals and plant sequences in order to estimate the relative conspicuousness of each motor pattern in the lizard display. This led to a much better understanding of motion signal structure and opened the path to many studies on the influence of the environment on lizard signaling behavior (Leal and Fleishman, 2004;Ord et al, 2007Ord et al, , 2010Peters et al, 2007Peters et al, , 2008Ord and Stamps, 2008;Fleishman and Pallus, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying Ecological Constraints on Motion Signaling

Ramos

Peters

2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The environment in which animal signals are generated has the potential to affect transmission and reliable detection by receivers. To understand such constraints, it is important to quantify both signals and noise in detail. Investigations of acoustic and color signals now utilize established methods, but quantifying motion-based visual signals and noise remains rudimentary. In this paper, we encourage a more complete consideration of motion signaling environments and describe an approach to quantifying signal and noise in detail. Signals are reconstructed in three-dimensions, microhabitats are mapped and the noise environment quantified in a standardized manner. Information on signal and noise is combined to consider signal contrast from multiple viewpoints, and in any of the habitats we map. We illustrate our approach by examining signals and noise for two allopatric populations of the Australian mallee military dragon Ctenophorus fordi. By "placing" signals in different microhabitats we observed similar signal contrast results within populations, but clear differences when considered in microhabitats of the other population. These preliminary results are consistent with the hypothesis that habitat structure has affected display structure in these populations of lizards. Our novel methodology will facilitate the examination of habitat-dependent convergence and divergence in motion signal structure in a variety of taxonomic groups and habitats. Furthermore, we anticipate application of our approach to consider the visual ecology of animals more broadly.

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Signaling against the Wind: Modifying Motion-Signal Structure in Response to Increased Noise

Cited by 99 publications

References 26 publications

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Camouflage and Perceptual Organization in the Animal Kingdom

Alert signals enhance animal communication in “noisy” environments

Quantifying Ecological Constraints on Motion Signaling

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