Osorio D, Jones C D, Vorobyev M
School of Biological Sciences Sussex University Sussex BN1 9QG UK.
Curr Biol. 1999 Feb 25;9(4):199-202. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(99)80089-x.
The visual displays of animals and plants often look dramatic and colourful to us, but what information do they convey to their intended, non-human, audience [1] [2]? One possibility is that stimulus values are judged accurately - so, for example, a female might choose a suitor if he displays a specific colour [3]. Alternatively, as for human advertising, displays may attract attention without giving information, perhaps by exploiting innate preferences for bright colours or symmetry [2] [4] [5]. To address this issue experimentally, we investigated chicks' memories of visual patterns. Food was placed in patterned paper containers which, like seed pods or insect prey, must be manipulated to extract food and their patterns learnt. To establish what was learnt, birds were tested on familiar stimuli and on alternative stimuli of differing colour or contrast. For colour, birds selected the trained stimulus; for contrast, they preferred high contrast patterns over the familiar. These differing responses to colour and contrast show how separate components of display patterns could serve different roles, with colour being judged accurately whereas pattern contrast attracts attention.
动植物的视觉展示在我们看来往往引人注目且色彩斑斓，但它们向其目标受众（非人类）传达了什么信息呢[1][2]？一种可能性是刺激值被准确判断——例如，雌性可能会选择展示特定颜色的求偶者[3]。或者，就像人类广告一样，展示可能在不传达信息的情况下吸引注意力，也许是通过利用对鲜艳颜色或对称性的先天偏好[2][4][5]。为了通过实验解决这个问题，我们研究了雏鸡对视觉图案的记忆。食物被放置在有图案的纸质容器中，这些容器就像种子荚或昆虫猎物一样，必须经过操作才能取出食物，并且它们的图案会被记住。为了确定学到了什么，我们对鸟类进行了测试，测试内容包括熟悉的刺激物以及颜色或对比度不同的替代刺激物。对于颜色，鸟类选择经过训练的刺激物；对于对比度，它们更喜欢高对比度的图案而不是熟悉的图案。对颜色和对比度的这些不同反应表明，展示图案的不同组成部分可能发挥不同的作用，颜色被准确判断，而图案对比度则吸引注意力。
