Assessment of Paradoxical Signal Reliability

矛盾信号可靠性评估

• 批准号: 1457173
• 负责人: Philip Stoddard
• 金额: $ 48.5万
• 依托单位: Florida International University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-05-15 至 2019-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1457173&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Assessment; Paradoxical; Signal; Reliability

Successful communication and social assessment require receivers to discern when signals are reliable and when they are not. Compounding the problem is that signal reliability varies between signalers and across time within signalers. Because communication systems are not intrinsically reliable, primates, especially humans, spend a great deal of time and resources assessing the reliability of information received from members of their own species. Surprisingly, hard-wired communication systems of animals with simpler communication systems than humans are proving no more reliable, and we do not know how receivers in these species deal with unreliability of signals. This project will focus on a species with less sophisticated cognition to examine how fundamental strategies have evolved to cope with unreliable signals, the most important outstanding scientific puzzle in the field of communication. The investigator will also continue a successful hands-on science pedagogy workshop series that brings inquiry-based teaching methods into middle school classrooms, as well as offering direct mentorship opportunities for minority college and high school students in the research lab. The proposed project will address the central question by determining (1) whether receivers know when signals are reliable and when they are not, (2) whether receivers have strategies for addressing variable reliability and (3) whether signalers compensate for a receiver's lack of trust by providing more reliable information through other means. Male electric fish (Brachyhypopomus gauderio) are ideal for such investigation because their signal waveforms encode body length and androgen level with near perfect reliability, or virtually no reliability. Signal reliability in this system depends on population density and food availability. These variables will be controlled in the lab to promote reliable and unreliable signals, and to create prior exposure of receivers to signals that vary in reliability. Behavioral mate choice and male-male competition experiments will determine whether receivers assess reliability of a male signal by (i) monitoring prevailing social and food conditions, (ii) reviewing recent signal reliability, or (iii) whether receivers ignore signals and assess other, more reliable traits. The project will also determine whether signalers compensate for their lack of reliability by making the desired information readily available through other sensory strategies. Both raw and analyzed data are secured by the investigator prior to publication and made available for electronic sharing upon acceptance of the resulting manuscripts.

成功的沟通和社会评估要求接收者辨别信号何时可靠、何时不可靠。使问题更加复杂的是，信号可靠性在信号器之间以及信号器内随时间变化而变化。由于通信系统本质上并不可靠，灵长类动物，尤其是人类，花费大量时间和资源来评估从同类成员那里收到的信息的可靠性。令人惊讶的是，事实证明，具有比人类更简单的通信系统的动物的硬连线通信系统并不更可靠，而且我们不知道这些物种的接收器如何处理不可靠的信号。该项目将重点关注认知不太复杂的物种，以研究基本策略是如何进化来应对不可靠信号的，这是通信领域最重要的突出科学难题。研究人员还将继续成功举办科学教育学实践研讨会系列，将基于探究的教学方法引入中学课堂，并为研究实验室的少数族裔大学生和高中生提供直接指导机会。拟议项目将通过确定（1）接收者是否知道信号何时可靠、何时不可靠来解决核心问题；（2）接收者是否有解决可变可靠性的策略；（3）信号发送者是否通过其他方式提供更可靠的信息来弥补接收者缺乏信任。雄性电鱼（Brachyhypopomus gauderio）是此类研究的理想选择，因为它们的信号波形以近乎完美的可靠性或几乎没有可靠性来编码体长和雄激素水平。该系统中信号的可靠性取决于人口密度和食物供应情况。这些变量将在实验室中进行控制，以促进可靠和不可靠的信号，并让接收器预先暴露于可靠性不同的信号。行为择偶和雄性竞争实验将确定接收器是否通过以下方式评估雄性信号的可靠性：（i）监测普遍的社会和食物条件，（ii）审查最近的信号可靠性，或（iii）接收器是否忽略信号并评估其他更可靠的特征。该项目还将确定信号员是否可以通过其他感官策略轻松获得所需信息来弥补其可靠性的不足。原始数据和分析数据在出版前均由研究者保护，并在接受最终手稿后可用于电子共享。