Optimal multisensory integration

Nicole E Munoz, Daniel T Blumstein and LeighSimmons

Behavioral Ecology, 2020, vol. 31, issue 1, 184-193

Abstract: Animals are often confronted with potentially informative stimuli from a variety of sensory modalities. Although there is a large proximate literature demonstrating multisensory integration, no general framework explains why animals integrate. We developed and tested a quantitative model that explains why multisensory integration is not always adaptive and explains why unimodal decision-making might be favored over multisensory integration. We present our model in terms of a prey that must determine the presence or absence of a predator. A greater chance of encountering a predator, a greater benefit of correctly responding to a predator, a lower benefit of correctly foraging, or a greater uncertainty of the second stimulus favors integration. Uncertainty of the first stimulus may either increase or decrease the favorability of integration. In three field studies, we demonstrate how our model can be empirically tested. We evaluated the model with field studies of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) by presenting marmots with an olfactory-acoustic predator stimulus at a feed station. We found some support for the model's prediction that integration is favored when the second stimulus is less noisy. We hope additional predictions of the model will guide future empirical work that seeks to understand the extent to which multimodal integration might be situation dependent. We suggest that the model is generalizable beyond antipredator contexts and can be applied within or between individuals, populations, or species.Multisensory integration is often studied from a very proximate view that simply describes the process of integration. We developed a model, the first of its kind, to investigate the situations under which multisensory integration is adaptive. We empirically evaluated the model by investigating the conditions under which yellow-bellied marmots integrated predatory scents and sounds. We found that integration can depend on an animal's situation at a given point in time.

Keywords: antipredator; decision-making; information; integration; multimodal; multisensory; risk assessment; unified percept; yellow-bellied marmots (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arz175 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:31:y:2020:i:1:p:184-193.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().