Animal Communication

Question 1

Animal A communicates with Animal B when…

Answer 1

-A’s behavior manipulates B’s sense organs in such a way that B’s behavior has been changed

Question 2

2 primary functions of animal communication

Answer 2

• regulating social interaction (often by expressive attitudes toward social partners)
• giving information (e.g. location of food sources, predators, nest sites)

Question 3

ways to assign meaning to an animal signal

Answer 3

• look at the state of the signaling animal (encoding)
• observe the response of the receiving individuals (decoding)
• bees communicate food source with movement (waggle dance, on d2l)

Question 4

ritualization

Answer 4

• the evolutionary process by which a behavior pattern becomes increasingly effective as a signal
• begins with a behavior that is functional in another context
• the behavior eventually acquires a secondary value as a signal (e.g. human disgust facial expression)

Question 5

interspecies communication

Answer 5

-cleaner fish will send signals to turn off the prey catching response of a host (pics on d2l)

Question 6

dog-human

Answer 6

• 12 owners of mudis, 12 of oher breeds, 12 who didn’t own a dog
• recordings of dog barks
• all participants could classify correctly the aggressive, fearful, and playful barks
• dog barks contain info about their emotional state that is easily decoded by all humans

Question 7

wild crows can decode static and artificial sign vehicles

Answer 7

• birds exposed to “dangerous face” wearing a mask when the bird was trapped and tagged (d2l)
• crows after trapping, crows used harsh vocalizations to scold and mob people who wore the dangerous mask
• prior to trapping, crows did not scold people who wore the mask
• after trapping, crows did not scold trappers who wore no mask or who wore a different mask than the one worn during trapping
• crows ignored the neutral mask and followed and scolded the person wearing the dangerous mask
• memory effect held 2.7 years after trapping
• 800-1000 days after trapping >still scolding

Question 8

olfactory communication

Answer 8

• earliest form of communication (chemical)
• rich in information (ex: dogs smelling everything)
• all but lost in primates, especially humans
• can travel over great distances
• some receivers are highly sensitive (e.g. female silk moth and bomo bylcol)
• influence receivers’ actions
• scent can function as a TERRITORY MARKER, a PERSONAL PERFUME (d2l)
• ring tailed lemur scenting example

Question 9

auditory communication

Answer 9

• sound signals vary in pitch, loudness, frequency, and temporal pattern
• some only vary on one of these (e.g. cricket)
• most vertebrates modulate temporal patterning and frequency
• sounds of the humpback whale can travel around the world in sound tunnels
• sound producing capacities can be artificially expanded

Question 10

predator alarms in marmosets

Answer 10

• showed marmosets 1 of 4 different models of a predator (owl, falcon, 2 rattlesnakes)
• recorded alarm calls
• played back their alarm calls to other marmosets
• recorded gaze of the decoder
• calls given to birds are acoustically distinct from those given to snake
• marmosets looked up while listening to bird, down snake elicited

Question 11

VISUAL displays

Answer 11

-displays are stereotyped motor patterns (they were once instrumentally functional, but not have a symbolic function)

Question 12

origins of displays (3)

Answer 12

• high emotion
• intention movements (ex: warning/attacking, intentional
• displacement movements (ex: caged animal pacing)

Question 13

postures

Answer 13

• display postures often show off distinctive features (e.g. color patterns, weapons)
• can be a deterrant without injury to the adversary
• evolved as signals
• can be deceptive (e.g. distraction displays- trying to fool predator, pay attention to me, instead of my young)

Question 14

adjusting communication posture and movement to avoid predation

Answer 14

• brown anole lizard
• 3 visual signals: pushups, headbobs, the dewlap expression (a throat fan)
• head bob is least conspicuous
• simulated attack with model of kestrel of fish line
• lizards kept emitting head bobs but reduced dewlap and pushups (to avoid predator paying attention to them)

Question 15

animal facial expressions

Answer 15

• humans are very advanced users of facial expression
• facial expression mostly used by mammals
• the more evolved the animal is the more sophisticated its facial repetoire is (also have good vision)
• many similarities between humans and nonhuman primate expressions d2l

Question 16

space and territory

Answer 16

• perfect balance of costs (energy to defend) with benefits (food, mates)
• some only defend territory during breeding season
• spacing out from neighbors decreases the effect of predation and disease
• usually territory is only defended against members of same species who will consume same resources

Question 17

vocalization

Answer 17

• producing sound by vocal apparatus occurs only in vertebrates
• designed to influence motivational states of other animals
• specialized structures (i.e. avian syrinx, mammalian larynx, ai chambers in frogs, howler monkeys, etc.)

Question 18

methods of producing sounds

Answer 18

• beating a substratel surface
• rubbing appendages
• blowing air through an orifice

Question 19

using sounds to communicate

Answer 19

• in thick foliage, have low pitched calls: carry better through obstructions
• in open air, have high pitched calls that cut through open air
• animals partition airwaves like radio stations
• animals that live out of sight of each other (e.g. in leafy environments) have more developed vocabularies
• humans have a sophisticated vocal production apparatus (but limited in terms of loudness and frequency range)

Question 20

tactile communication

Answer 20

• primates are some of the top users of tactile comm. (but less so in humans)
• among the great apes, hand shakes are used to convey reassurance.