Sharman Rebecca J, Lovell P George
Division of Psychology, Abertay University, Dundee, UK.
Iperception. 2019 Sep 16;10(5):2041669519877435. doi: 10.1177/2041669519877435. eCollection 2019 Sep-Oct.
Disruptive colouration (DC) is a form of camouflage comprised of areas of pigmentation across a target's surface that form false edges, which are said to impede detection by disguising the outline of the target. In nature, many species with DC also exhibit edge enhancement (EE); light areas have lighter edges and dark areas have darker edges. EE DC has been shown to undermine not only localisation but also identification of targets, even when they are not hidden (Sharman, Moncrieff, & Lovell, 2018). We use a novel task, where participants judge which "snake" is more "wiggly," to measure shape discrimination performance for three colourations (uniform, DC, and EE DC) and two backgrounds (leafy and uniform). We show that EE DC impairs shape discrimination even when targets are not hidden in a textured background. We suggest that this mechanism may contribute to misidentification of EE DC targets.
破坏性色彩（DC）是一种伪装形式，由目标表面的色素沉着区域组成，这些区域形成虚假边缘，据说通过掩盖目标轮廓来阻碍被发现。在自然界中，许多具有DC的物种也表现出边缘增强（EE）；浅色区域有更浅的边缘，深色区域有更深的边缘。研究表明，即使目标没有隐藏起来，EE DC不仅会影响目标的定位，还会影响目标的识别（沙曼、蒙克里夫和洛弗尔，2018年）。我们使用了一项新颖的任务，让参与者判断哪条“蛇”更“蜿蜒”，以测量三种颜色（均匀色、DC和EE DC）和两种背景（多叶和均匀背景）下的形状辨别能力。我们发现，即使目标没有隐藏在有纹理的背景中，EE DC也会损害形状辨别能力。我们认为，这种机制可能导致对EE DC目标的误识别。
