ABSTRACT
Visual motion, a critical cue in communication, can be manipulated and studied using video playback methods. A primary concern for the video playback researcher is the degree to which objects presented on video appear natural to the non-human subject. Here we argue that the quality of motion cues on video, as determined by the video's image presentation rate (IPR), are of particular importance in determining a subject's social response behaviour. We present an experiment testing the effect of variations in IPR on pigeon (Columbia livia) response behaviour towards video images of courting opposite sex partners. Male and female pigeons were presented with three video playback stimuli, each containing a different social partner. Each stimulus was then modified to appear at one of three IPRs: 15, 30 or 60 progressive (p) frames per second. The results showed that courtship behaviour became significantly longer in duration as IPR increased. This finding implies that the IPR significantly affects the perceived quality of motion cues impacting social behaviour. In males we found that the duration of courtship also depended on the social partner viewed and that this effect interacted with the effects of IPR on behaviour. Specifically, the effect of social partner reached statistical significance only when the stimuli were displayed at 60 p, demonstrating the potential for erroneous results when insufficient IPRs are used. In addition to demonstrating the importance of IPR in video playback experiments, these findings help to highlight and describe the role of visual motion processing in communication behaviour.
Footnotes
Competing interests
The authors have no competing or financial interests to declare.
Author contributions
This research was conceived and designed by E.L.R.W. and N.F.T. E.L.R.W. executed the experiments, analysis and interpretation of results. N.F.T. conceived of, while D.R.S. and E.L.R.W. designed and carried out the automatic coding techniques used for analysis. E.L.R.W. drafted the manuscript, including contributions from N.F.T and D.R.S. All authors edited, revised and approved the manuscript.
Funding
This work was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant held by N.F.T. and by contributions from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
- Received December 17, 2014.
- Accepted March 27, 2015.
- © 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Keywords
Article Navigation
Related articles
Cited by...
More in this TOC section
Similar articles
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Cover article – A solution to prevent secondary flow in adherent cell cultures
Peter Szaraz and his colleagues show that, although secondary flow in small scale cultures can crucially affect cell phenotype and function, a simple modification of the classical round-shaped cell culture vessels can minimize the adverse effect of secondary flow.
Josh Currie, Tatiana Sandoval-Guzmán and their co-workers study dermal Prrx1 enhancer-positive cells, which are injury-responsive fibroblasts, and demonstrate that they readily migrate into the wound bed and amplify on average 16-fold beyond their uninjured numbers.
Have you seen our interviews with the early-career first authors of our papers? Recently, we caught up with first authors Peter Szaraz, Josh Currie, Jeanette C. Perron, Louise Roberts and Qingting Hu.
Biology Open has strong credentials and publishing with us is easy and fast. BiO aims to provide rapid publication for scientifically sound observations and valid conclusions in developmental, cell, experimental and translational biology. Submit your paper here – you’ll be in good company!
Recent disease mechanism highlights in BiO – Bernhard Weber and his team find that mice carrying the human Y227N mutation in the endogenous Best1 gene reveal a pathologic phenotype in testis. This provides an in vivo tool to evaluate therapeutic efficacies aimed at restoring protein function.
Transfer to Biology Open
Did you know: if your submission to one of our sister journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology or Disease Models & Mechanisms, is unsuccessful, you can transfer your paper and any reviews directly to Biology Open! The majority of papers transferred with reviews are accepted for publication. Read here to find out more.
BiO partners with Publons!
Biology Open is pleased to announce a new partnership with Publons! This allows reviewers to easily track and verify every review by choosing to add the review to their Publons profile when completing the review submission form. Publons makes it simple for reviewers to showcase their peer review contributions in a format that can be included in job and funding applications (without breaking reviewer anonymity). Read the official announcement here!
preLights - Cross-kingdom recognition of bacterial small RNAs induces transgenerational pathogenic avoidance
Madhuja Samaddar highlights a preprint from Coleen Murphy’s lab, which uncovers how C. elegans pass on a learned avoidance of pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa to four generations of its progeny!