Collaborative Research: NSF-BSF: Neural and perceptual mechanisms that bias mate choice in complex signaling environments

人类和其他动物经常在复杂的社会环境中交流，其中多个个体产生一系列重复的发声，并且听者在评估长时间尺度上出现的信号特性后做出反应。听众如何追踪各个信号者将决定许多重要决策的结果，特别是如果太多相互竞争的信号者给听众造成混乱的话。该项目调查了雌蛙选择配偶的程度，使用神经机制，容易与抵抗混淆，以了解听众的神经机制如何塑造声音行为的演变。这项研究的重点是科普的灰色树蛙，Hyla chrysoscelis，一个物种，在以前的工作表明，女性更喜欢男性，生产语音交配呼叫更快，更有规律的速度。拟议的目标将提供一个机械的观点的感官和知觉偏见经常提出影响信号和择偶。这些目标开发了新的技术方法来表征行为反应和记录神经活动，这将使人们能够对听者的神经回路如何在嘈杂的环境中跟踪单个信号器有新的见解。该项目将为博士后研究员提供培训和就业机会，他们被认为是STEM历史上被排除在外的群体的成员，每年最多可为12名本科生提供培训和就业机会。最后，该项目将扩展一个非常成功的教育游戏，通过让学生构建具有简单神经回路的生物来教授本科生神经决策的基本原理。该建议集成了行为和神经方法，以确定接收器如何评估复杂信号环境中的一系列信号。目标1将确定女性的偏好，男性的呼叫率和规律性依赖于竞争信号的数量，使用经典的行为phonotaxis措施的偏好。目标2将使用新的传感器技术，测量详细的运动动态，研究女性在评估呼叫率和规律性时的感知过程。Aim 3将利用新开发的柔性电极来评估女性对一系列呼叫的偏好是如何通过主要感觉运动中脑区域的神经回路动态编码的。如果拟议中的研究发现，在复杂的声学环境中，性选择会减少，那么这些实验将确定限制随时间推移跟踪信号序列的能力的神经机制。或者，如果性选择即使在许多信号存在的情况下也有效地进行，则实验将确定支持雌性即使在活跃的leks中也表现出择偶偏好的能力的行为和神经机制。除了开辟新的研究途径，了解神经处理的能力或限制如何影响择偶，该项目旨在解决神经科学研究表明，随着时间的推移，重复的刺激往往会引起较弱的感官反应与感官和知觉偏见的行为生态模型，证明首选的交配信号是那些在接收器中引起较强的感官反应。探索这些相互冲突的期望的交叉点将有助于实现行为生态学和神经生物学方法之间更大的一致性，以了解动物behaviors.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Humans and other animals often communicate in complex social environments in which multiple individuals produce series of repeated vocalizations, and listeners respond after assessing signal properties that emerge over long times scales. How listeners track individual signalers through time will determine outcomes of many consequential decisions, especially if too many competing signalers create confusion on the part of listeners. This project investigates the extent to which female frogs choose mates using neural mechanisms that are susceptible versus resistant to confusion to understand how neural mechanisms in listeners shape the evolution of vocal behavior. The research focuses on Cope’s gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis, a species in which prior work shows that females prefer males that produce vocal mating calls at faster and more regular rates. The proposed aims will provide a mechanistic view of the sensory and perceptual biases frequently proposed to impact signaling and mate choice. The aims develop new technological approaches to characterize behavioral responses and record neural activity that will enable new insights into how neural circuits in a listener can track an individual signaler in noisy environments. This project will provide training and career opportunities for postdoctoral fellows who identify as members of historically excluded groups in STEM and for up to 12 undergraduate students each year. Finally, the project will extend a highly successful educational game that teaches undergraduates the fundamentals of neural decision making by having students build creatures with simple neural circuits. This proposal integrates behavioral and neural approaches to determine how receivers evaluate a series of signals in complex signaling environments. Aim 1 will determine how female preferences for male call rate and regularity depend on the number of competing signalers using classical behavioral phonotaxis measures of preference. Aim 2 will use new sensor technology that measures detailed movement dynamics to study the perceptual processes females employ when assessing call rate and regularity. Aim 3 will leverage newly developed flexible electrodes to evaluate how female preferences for series of calls are dynamically coded by neural circuits in a major sensory-motor midbrain region. If the proposed research finds that sexual selection is reduced in complex acoustic environments, the experiments will identify neural mechanisms that constrain the ability to follow signal series through time. Alternatively, if sexual selection operates effectively even with many signalers present, the experiments will identify behavioral and neural mechanisms that support the ability of females to exhibit mate preferences even in active leks. In addition to opening new paths of inquiry into how the capabilities or constraints of neural processing impact mate choice, this project seeks to resolve neuroscience studies demonstrating that repeated stimuli tend to elicit weaker sensory responses over time with behavioral ecological models for sensory and perceptual biases that posit that preferred mating signals are those that that elicit stronger sensory responses in receivers. Probing the intersection of these conflicting expectations will help achieve greater consilience between behavioral ecological and neurobiological approaches to understanding animal behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.