Data from: Mate choice in the eye and ear of the beholder? Female multimodal sensory configuration influences her preferences

A common assumption in sexual selection studies is that receivers decode signal information similarly. However, receivers may vary in how they rank signallers if signal perception varies with an individual's sensory configuration. Furthermore, receivers may vary in their weighting of different elements of multimodal signals based on their sensory configuration. This could lead to complex levels of selection on signalling traits. We tested whether multimodal sensory configuration could affect preferences for multimodal signals. We used brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) females to examine how auditory sensitivity and auditory filters, which influence auditory spectral and temporal resolution, affect song preferences, and how visual spatial resolution and visual temporal resolution, which influence resolution of a moving visual signal, affect visual display preferences. Our results show that multimodal sensory configuration significantly affects preferences for male displays: females with better auditory temporal resolution preferred songs that were shorter, with lower Wiener entropy, and higher frequency; and females with better visual temporal resolution preferred males with less intense visual displays. Our findings provide new insights into mate-choice decisions and receiver signal processing. Furthermore, our results challenge a longstanding assumption in animal communication which can affect how we address honest signalling, assortative mating, and sensory drive.

性选择研究领域的一项普遍假设认为，信号接收者对信号信息的解码方式具有一致性。但若信号感知能力随个体的感官构型（sensory configuration）而异，则接收者对信号发送者的排序方式可能存在差异。此外，接收者还可能基于自身的感官构型，对多模态信号（multimodal signals）的不同组成部分赋予差异化权重。这一现象可能会对信号发送性状形成复杂的选择压力。本研究探究了多模态感官构型是否会影响个体对多模态信号的偏好。我们以褐头牛鹂（Molothrus ater）雌性个体为实验对象，探究影响听觉频谱与时间分辨率的听觉敏感度及听觉滤波器（auditory filters）如何影响个体对鸣唱信号的偏好，同时探究影响动态视觉信号分辨率的视觉空间分辨率与视觉时间分辨率如何影响个体对雄性求偶展示的偏好。研究结果表明，多模态感官构型会显著影响个体对雄性求偶展示的偏好：听觉时间分辨率更高的雌性个体，更偏好时长更短、维纳熵（Wiener entropy）更低且频率更高的鸣唱信号；而视觉时间分辨率更高的雌性个体，则更偏好求偶展示强度更低的雄性个体。本研究结果为配偶选择决策与接收者信号处理机制提供了全新视角。此外，我们的发现挑战了动物交流领域一项长期存在的经典假设，这一假设的修正将影响我们对诚实信号、选型交配以及感官驱动（sensory drive）相关问题的研究思路。