Data from: Disruptive camouflage impairs object recognition

Whether hiding from predators, or avoiding battlefield casualties, camouflage is widely employed to prevent detection. Disruptive coloration is a seemingly well-known camouflage mechanism proposed to function by breaking up an object’s salient features (such as their characteristic outline), rendering objects more difficult to recognise. However, while a wide range of animals are thought to evade detection using disruptive patterns, there is no direct experimental evidence that disruptive coloration impairs recognition. Using humans searching for computer-generated moth targets, we demonstrate that the number of edge-intersecting patches on a target reduces the likelihood of it being detected, even at the expense of reduced background matching. Crucially, eye-tracking data show that targets with more edge-intersecting patches were looked at for longer periods prior to attack, and passed-over more frequently during search tasks. We therefore show directly that edge patches enhance survivorship by impairing recognition, confirming that disruptive coloration is a distinct camouflage strategy, not simply an artefact of background matching.

无论是为躲避天敌，还是规避战场伤亡，伪装均被广泛应用于规避侦测。破坏性色彩（Disruptive Coloration）是一种广为人知的伪装机制，其运作原理被认为是通过破坏目标的显著特征（如标志性轮廓），进而使目标更难被识别。然而，尽管学界普遍认为诸多动物可借助破坏性斑纹实现隐蔽侦测，但目前尚无直接实验证据表明破坏性色彩会损害识别效果。本研究通过让人类受试者搜索计算机生成的蛾类目标，证实目标上的边缘交叉斑块数量越多，其被侦测到的概率越低，即便这会牺牲其背景匹配度。尤为关键的是，眼动追踪数据显示，边缘交叉斑块更多的目标在被受试者选中前，会被注视更长时间，且在搜索任务中被跳过的频次更高。因此本研究直接证实，边缘交叉斑块通过干扰识别过程提升了目标的存活率，从而确认破坏性色彩是一种独立的伪装策略，而非仅仅是背景匹配效应的伪产物。