China News Service, Chengdu, August 8 (Reporter He Shaoqing) The reporter learned from the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (referred to as "Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences") on the 8th that the animal behavior and bionics project team of the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences found that under noise interference The communication efficiency of audiovisual multimodal signals in frogs is significantly reduced, and noise can affect animals' mate choice through cross-sensory interference.

  The results provide new evidence for the cross-sensory interference of noise, demonstrating for the first time that environmental noise interferes with animals' use of visual cues to select mates.

At present, this research result has been published online in the international academic journal "Environmental Pollution" under the title "Noise affects mate choice based on visual information via cross-sensory interference".

  It is understood that the communication process is often disturbed by noise, and how to effectively transmit and identify signals in a noisy environment is a serious challenge for humans and animals.

There is a view that multimode signals can improve communication efficiency in noisy environments.

For example, when auditory channels are masked by noise, humans and animals rely more on other sensory channels (vision, smell, etc.), a strategy known as multimodal shift.

Studies have shown that ambient noise can interfere with vocal communication, and visual background noise can interfere with visual communication.

The saw-leg originally refers to the tree frog.

Photo courtesy of Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  When the brain processes signals from one sensory channel, it may impair its ability to process signals from another sensory channel.

Therefore, in theory, the noise of the auditory system may interfere with the recognition of visual signals.

However, there is little experimental evidence on whether and how noise affects mate choice in animals through cross-sensory interference.

  Researchers from the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences took the saw-legged tree frog (Kurixalus odontotarsus) as the object, and presented single-mode signals (sound or sac-sing video) and audio-visual multi-mode signals (sound + sac-sing video) to female frogs through speakers and display screens. ) to verify whether the noise interferes with the frog's ability to process sound, vision or audio-visual multimodal signals.

The results showed that when no noise was played, female frogs were able to accurately select more attractive single-mode signals (sound or visual) or audio-visual multimodal signals; when noise was played, the female frog's selection preference disappeared or even reversed.

At the same time, the cross-sensory interference of environmental noise is affected by the matching degree of the noise frequency with the subject's auditory sensitivity range and the difficulty of task recognition.

In addition, the study found that environmental noise significantly changed the amount of time female frogs spent making mate choices.

  This result provides new evidence for the cross-sensory interference of noise, demonstrating for the first time that environmental noise interferes with animals' use of visual cues to choose mates, which is likely to reduce animals' communication efficiency in noisy environments, thereby affecting their fitness.

This study elucidates how noise affects animal mate choice through cross-sensory interference, which is of great significance for revealing the function and evolution of multimodal signals in noisy environments, as well as the multimodal harm of noise, and for scientific prediction and mitigation of noise interference on wildlife. impact provides an important basis.

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