Communication Psychology 3106 Introduction Animals spend a lot

Communication Psychology 3106

Introduction • Animals spend a lot of time communicating • Defense • Mating • Food sources • To say communication has occurred we need a sender and a receiver • As usual, we can look at evolutionary change, or adaptive value (or both of course)

You can dance if you want to…. • Dance language of the honeybees • Function is to communicate location of food sources to hive members • Hive members then can interpret the dance • They then go out in the right direction and distance (or just right direction, depends) and find the food

The Round Dance • Used only if food source is < 50 m away • Number of circuits in a given time tell how far away food source is • No direction info is given with the round dance

The Waggle Dance • If food source is > 50 m away • Redundant sources of distance info • • Number of circuits Number of waggles Number of sound bursts All proportional to distance • Angle of straight line portion of dance gives compass direction! • Up is where the sun is in the sky

• If you don’t think this is cool…. . • If they are forced to dance in the open air, they will actually use the sun rather than ‘up means sun’

Reconstructing the evolution of the honeybee dance • Lindauer’s work • All honeybees dance • All other Apids dance, but Apis Florea uses a sort of open air ‘dance floor’

And the story continues… • Some Trigona species just get exited and hum a lot • Giving out food in the process actually • Other Trigona species leave a scent mark as well • Melipona give out pulses of sound • Sort of leads ‘em out

Adaptive Value • The Hive works together anyway, so its best to get to food quickly, by getting others involved • The hive works together, but for very specific reasons, and it is not altruism, more on that when we get there • Don’t have to waste time leading others out, risk predation etc • Costs? • Other animals could interpret the signal • Very unlikely in the bee example

Sometimes other animals get the signal…. . • Tungura Frogs • Females like the ‘whine chuck’ call • Everybody whine chuck tonight…. • (Drives the babes wild) • But, umm, bats like it too, and bats eat frogs! • When they are alone, males only whine, when they are with other males, they ‘whine chuck’

You might just get what you wish for, so be careful. . • Male European toads call • Biggest females respond • Ummm errr, well, ummm, it can get ugly, lets’ just say that….

Conclusions • Animals communicate alll the time • Olfactory • Calls • Various other signals • Others can learn to pick up on the signals • Nothing like language though! • Humans win humans win!!!