Rowe Candy
Department of Psychology, The Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Framlington Place, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2002 Jul 7;269(1498):1353-7. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2012.
Aposematic insects use warning colours to deter predators, but many also produce odours or sounds when attacked by a predator. One possible role for these additional components is that they promote the association between the warning colour and the non-profitability it signals, thus reducing the chance of future attacks from visually hunting predators. This experiment explicitly tests this idea by looking at the effects of sound on a visual discrimination task. Young domestic chicks were trained to look for food rewards under coloured paper cones scattered in an experimental arena. In a subsequent visual discrimination task, they learned to discriminate between rewarded and non-rewarded hats on the basis of colour. Half the chicks performed this task in silence, whilst the other half had a tone played when they attacked non-rewarded hats. The presence of the tone improved the speed of colour discrimination learning. This demonstrates that there could be a selective advantage for aposematic coloured insects to emit sounds when attacked, since avian predators will learn to avoid their coloration more quickly. The role of psychological interactions between signal components in receivers is discussed in relation to the evolution of multimodal displays.
具有警戒色的昆虫利用警示颜色来威慑捕食者，但许多昆虫在受到捕食者攻击时也会散发气味或发出声音。这些额外信号的一个可能作用是，它们促进了警示颜色与其所传达的不可食性之间的关联，从而减少未来视觉型捕食者发动攻击的几率。本实验通过观察声音对视觉辨别任务的影响，明确验证了这一观点。将幼年家鸡训练至在实验场地中散落的彩色纸锥下寻找食物奖励。在随后的视觉辨别任务中，它们学会根据颜色区分有奖励和无奖励的纸锥。一半的小鸡在安静环境中完成该任务，而另一半小鸡在攻击无奖励纸锥时会听到一个音调。音调的存在提高了颜色辨别学习的速度。这表明，对于具有警戒色的昆虫来说，受到攻击时发出声音可能具有选择优势，因为鸟类捕食者会更快学会避开它们的颜色。本文结合多模态展示的进化，讨论了信号成分在接收者中的心理交互作用。
