Detection of cryptic prey: search image or search rate?
Animals' improvement in capturing cryptic prey with experience has long been attributed to a perceptual mechanism, the specific search image. Detection could also be improved by adjusting rate of search. In a series of studies using both naturalistic and operant search tasks, pigeons searched for wheat, dyed to produce 1 conspicuous and 2 equally cryptic prey types. Contrary to the predictions of the search-rate hypothesis, pigeons given a choice between the 2 cryptic types took the type experienced most recently. However, experience with 1 cryptic type improved accuracy on the other cryptic type, a result inconsistent with a search image specific to 1 prey type. Search image may better be thought of as priming of attention to those features of the prey type that best distinguish the prey from the background.
Reid
P J
PJ
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Shettleworth
S J
SJ
D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D010856:Columbidae; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology; D007092:Imagination; D011939:Mental Recall; D011235:Predatory Behavior