'Don’t eat me!' – Trade-offs between recognition speed and accuracy in a jumping spider
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1
Duke University, Biology, United States
Jumping spiders’ principal eyes, specialized for analysis of shape and pattern, have unusually narrow fields of view subtending a small fraction of the angle subtended by a conspecific at normal viewing distances. This should theoretically retard visual processing time. Encounters with other predaceous arthropods, including other jumping spiders, can be dangerous. Quick and accurate reactions can make the difference between life and death. We therefore hypothesized: 1) Selection should favor precise visual templates for multiple conspecific features so that multiple features need not be evaluated in order for spiders to make quick and accurate identifications, and 2) When pheromones are present, males should allocate less time to visual inspection, and, as a result, make more recognition errors when challenged with unnatural combinations of visual features. We tested our hypotheses by presenting male Lyssomanes viridis with computer-animated images of conspecifics, heterospecifics, and artificial combinations of features, in the presence versus absence of female pheromones. Subjects’ courtship versus threat responses indicated whether an image was perceived as a potential mate or threat. Males demonstrated only coarse visual templates for conspecific features, and were more likely to respond appropriately to images when pheromones were absent. When pheromones were present, males spent less time examining images, and frequently approached heterospecific and composite images with courtship displays. This suggests males reconstruct complete mental representations of objects when visual cues are the only ones available. When chemical cues are also available, males seem to be inspecting a subset of visual features and, as a result, are liable to make potentially fatal recognition errors.
Keywords:
Chemoreception,
jumping spider,
multimodal communication,
recognition,
Vision,
Visual Field
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for Participant Symposium)
Topic:
Sensory: Vision
Citation:
Tedore
C and
Johnsen
S
(2012). 'Don’t eat me!' – Trade-offs between recognition speed and accuracy in a jumping spider.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00295
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Received:
30 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Cynthia Tedore, Duke University, Biology, Durham, North Carolina, 27708, United States, cynthia.tedore@uni-hamburg.de