Department of Game Management and Wildlife Biology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 165 21, Prague 6, Czech Republic.
Department of General Zoology, Faculty of Biology, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45117, Essen, Germany.
Acta Biotheor. 2021 Mar;69(1):53-65. doi: 10.1007/s10441-020-09389-6. Epub 2020 Sep 2.
Acoustic signals serving intraspecific communication by predators are perceived by potential prey as warning signals. We analysed the acoustic characteristics of howling of wolves and found a striking similarity to the warning sounds of technical sirens. We hypothesize that the effectivity of sirens as warning signals has been enhanced by natural sensory predisposition of humans to get alerted by howling of wolves, with which they have a long history of coexistence. Psychoacoustic similarity of both stimuli seems to be supported by the fact that wolves and dogs perceive the sound of technical sirens as a relevant releasing supernormal stimulus and reply to it with howling. Inspiration by naturally occurring acoustic aposematic signals might become an interesting example of biomimetics in designing new warning sound systems.
捕食者用于种内交流的声信号被潜在猎物视为警告信号。我们分析了狼嚎的声学特征，发现它与技术警笛的警告声惊人地相似。我们假设，警笛作为警告信号的有效性已经被人类对狼嚎的自然感官倾向所增强，人类与狼有着长期共存的历史。这两种刺激的心理声学相似性似乎得到了事实的支持，即狼和狗将技术警笛的声音视为相关的释放超常刺激，并以狼嚎回应。从自然发生的警示声信号中获得灵感，可能成为设计新的警告声音系统的仿生学的一个有趣例子。
