TY - JOUR
T1 - An empirical test of signal detection theory as it applies to Batesian mimicry
AU - McGuire, Liam
AU - Van Gossum, Hans
AU - Beirinckx, Kirsten
AU - Sherratt, Thomas N.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank our anonymous referees for their insightful comments on our paper. We also thank Mike Speed and Arash Rashed for helpful advice, and the numerous volunteers for their participation and happy smiles. The research was approved by the Carleton University Research Ethics Committee and conducted according to the guidelines set out in the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. Our work was facilitated by grants from NSERC, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust (TNS). HVG is a postdoctoral fellow with the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders. An executable version of our VB code is available on request from the corresponding author.
PY - 2006/11/1
Y1 - 2006/11/1
N2 - Signal detection theory (SDT) has been repeatedly invoked to understand how palatable prey might gain an advantage by resembling unpalatable prey. Here we developed an experimental test of the theory in which we sequentially presented computer-generated Mimics (profitable to attack) and Models (unprofitable to attack) to human volunteers, and asked them to forage in a way that maximized their personal scores. Both the Mimics and Models exhibited normally distributed variation in a single stimulus dimension. When we varied the mean similarity of Mimics to Models, and the proportion of all prey items that were Mimics, our human predators made foraging decisions that were close to those predicted by SDT, including the adoption of a threshold in appearance beyond which prey items were unlikely to be attacked. The fit of predictions to observations was marginally closer when including the time taken to handle the two types of prey. When Mimics and Models were allowed to evolve in appearance subject to selection, the evolutionary trajectory fitted the predictions of SDT closely. While our system was not appropriate to test all predictions of recent SDT theory, it provides strong support for the SDT framework as it applies to Batesian mimicry.
AB - Signal detection theory (SDT) has been repeatedly invoked to understand how palatable prey might gain an advantage by resembling unpalatable prey. Here we developed an experimental test of the theory in which we sequentially presented computer-generated Mimics (profitable to attack) and Models (unprofitable to attack) to human volunteers, and asked them to forage in a way that maximized their personal scores. Both the Mimics and Models exhibited normally distributed variation in a single stimulus dimension. When we varied the mean similarity of Mimics to Models, and the proportion of all prey items that were Mimics, our human predators made foraging decisions that were close to those predicted by SDT, including the adoption of a threshold in appearance beyond which prey items were unlikely to be attacked. The fit of predictions to observations was marginally closer when including the time taken to handle the two types of prey. When Mimics and Models were allowed to evolve in appearance subject to selection, the evolutionary trajectory fitted the predictions of SDT closely. While our system was not appropriate to test all predictions of recent SDT theory, it provides strong support for the SDT framework as it applies to Batesian mimicry.
KW - Artificial evolution
KW - Batesian mimicry
KW - Predation
KW - Signal detection theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33750102063&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.beproc.2006.07.004
DO - 10.1016/j.beproc.2006.07.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 16938412
AN - SCOPUS:33750102063
VL - 73
SP - 299
EP - 307
JO - Behavioural Processes
JF - Behavioural Processes
SN - 0376-6357
IS - 3
ER -