Mate Searching Animals as Model Systems for Understanding Perceptual Grouping

A critical component of communication in humans and nonhuman animals is the ability to group signals so that they can be assigned to their correct sources. This is especially true for mate choice behavior, as incorrect stimulus grouping could lead to inaccurate evaluation of signalers by receivers, ultimately resulting in costly mate choice decisions . Sexual signals are often complex, consisting of components that vary in several physical parameters and across sensory modalities. Thus, the mate choice behavior of receivers is well suited for psychophysical tests of the limits and mechanisms of perceptual grouping both within and across sensory modalities. This chapter examines perceptual grouping in comparative models of mate choice behavior. We focus primarily on mate attraction in frogs, reviewing first the effects of spectral, temporal, and spatial parameters on sequential and simultaneous auditory grouping. We then review research on cross-modal perceptual grouping of frog visual and acoustic signals, a perceptual ability analogous to that of grouping human speech with its coincident mouth movements. In addition, we suggest that data from comparative models are not only useful for understanding signal processing in animal communication but also for potentially understanding the fundamental mechanisms receivers use to sort complex signals across all taxa and how such mechanisms may evolve.