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，在这种环境中，多个个体产生一系列重复的声音，听众在评估长时间尺度出现的信号特性后做出反应。听众如何跟踪单个信号将决定许多重要决策的结果，特别是如果太多的竞争信号会使听众感到困惑。该项目调查了雌性青蛙在多大程度上使用易受混淆的神经机制来选择配偶，以了解听者的神经机制如何塑造发声行为的进化。这项研究的重点是柯普的灰色树蛙——金丝蛙。在这个物种中，之前的研究表明，雌性更喜欢发出更快、更有规律的求偶声的雄性。提出的目标将提供一个机制的观点，经常提出的影响信号和配偶选择的感觉和知觉偏见。目的是开发新的技术方法来表征行为反应和记录神经活动，这将使人们对听者的神经回路如何在嘈杂环境中跟踪单个信号者有新的认识。该项目将为那些被认为是STEM历史上被排斥群体成员的博士后和每年最多12名本科生提供培训和就业机会。最后，该项目将扩展一款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，向本科生传授神经决策的基础知识。该提案整合了行为和神经方法，以确定接收器如何在复杂的信号环境中评估一系列信号。目的1将确定女性对男性呼叫率和规律性的偏好如何依赖于使用经典行为趋声性偏好测量的竞争信号者的数量。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使用的感知过程。目的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。如果提出的研究发现性选择在复杂的声音环境中减少，实验将确定神经机制，该机制限制了随着时间的推移跟随信号序列的能力。另外，如果性选择即使在有许多信号的情况下也能有效地进行，那么实验将确定行为和神经机制，这些机制支持雌性在活跃的雄性中表现出配偶偏好的能力。除了探索神经处理的能力或限制如何影响配偶选择的新途径外，该项目还试图解决神经科学研究的问题，这些研究表明，随着时间的推移，重复的刺激往往会引起较弱的感觉反应，这种反应与感觉和知觉偏见的行为生态模型相结合，假设偏好的交配信号是那些在接受者中引起更强的感觉反应的信号。探索这些相互冲突的期望的交集将有助于在理解动物行为的行为生态学和神经生物学方法之间实现更大的一致性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.