Open AccessMantis shrimp identify an object by its shape rather than its color during visual recognition
Author(s) -
Rickesh N. Patel,
Veniamin Khil,
Laylo Abdurahmonova,
Holland Driscoll,
Sarina Patel,
Olivia Pettyjohn-Robin,
Ahmad Shah,
Tamar Goldwasser,
Benjamin Sparklin,
Thomas W. Cronin
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of experimental biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.367
H-Index - 185
eISSN - 1477-9145
pISSN - 0022-0949
DOI - 10.1242/jeb.242256
Subject(s) - artificial intelligence , mantis , computer vision , salient , object (grammar) , cognitive neuroscience of visual object recognition , communication , biology , pattern recognition (psychology) , computer science , psychology , ecology
Mantis shrimp commonly inhabit seafloor environments with an abundance of visual features including conspecifics, predators, prey and landmarks used for navigation. Although these animals are capable of discriminating color and polarization, it is unknown what specific attributes of a visual object are important during recognition. Here, we show that mantis shrimp of the species Neogonodactylus oerstedii are able to learn the shape of a trained target. Further, when the shape and color of a target that they had been trained to identify were placed in conflict, N. oerstedii tended to choose the target of the trained shape over the target of the trained color. Thus, we conclude that the shape of the target was more salient than its color during recognition by N. oerstedii, suggesting that the shapes of objects, such as landmarks or other animals, are important for their identification by the species.