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A new heuristic for capturing the complexity of multimodal signals

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Abstract

Many animal signals are inherently multimodal, engaging more than one of the receiver’s sensory systems simultaneously, and it is the interaction between the two modalities that determines the signal’s function (s) and efficacy. It is hence necessary to quantify the effect of each modality relative to the other in order to fully understand animal communication. We have developed a new heuristic to aid in the identification and interpretation of the many distinct ways in which signals in multiple sensory modalities interact. Our approach represents natural variation in signal production for each modality and uses these to generate three-dimensional receiver response surface plots that map the relationships among the signal components and receiver behavior. We accommodate the extant hypotheses for the interactions between modalities, each of which makes a clear prediction about the shape of the response surface, and extend previous theory by considering new phenomena.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge funding support from the Australian Research Council to CSE and funding support from Macquarie University to CLS. We thank Phil Taylor and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Carolynn L. Smith & Christopher S. Evans

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  1. Carolynn L. Smith
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Correspondence to Carolynn L. Smith.

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Communicated by J. Higham

This manuscript is part of the special issue Multimodal Communication—Guest Editors: James P. Higham and Eileen A. Hebets.

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Smith, C.L., Evans, C.S. A new heuristic for capturing the complexity of multimodal signals. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 1389–1398 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1490-0

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