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Video playback techniques were used to explore the perception of visual signals in the green swordtail (Xiphophorus helleri), one of Darwin's examples of extreme sexual dimorphism. Males swordtails have conspicuous ornaments, which are known to play a role in female mate choice. The role of behaviour has been relatively neglected because it has been almost impossible to manipulate the structure of displays. We conducted a series of experiments in which the morphology of a videorecorded male was held constant while his behaviour was systematically varied. Female responses were dependent upon the occurrence of courtship motor patterns (left), demonstrating that the fish were integrating information from static cues (appearance) and dynamic cues (behaviour). | |
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In
a complementary series of experiments, we used image processing techniques
to alter the appearance of courting males. Females were presented with
simultaneous choices between pairs of digitized video stimuli. Click on
the images (right) to see the corresponding animated sequence. GIFs are
used for illustration - these have lower resolution than the original
playback stimuli. Participants:
Chris Evans |
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