Females of many species choose mates using multiple sensory modalities. Multimodal noise may arise, however, in dense aggregations of animals communicating via multiple sensory modalities. Some evidence suggests multimodal signals may not always improve receiver decision-making performance. When sensory systems process input from multimodal signal sources, multimodal noise may arise and potentially complicate decision-making due to the demands on cognitive integration tasks. We tested female túngara frog, Physalaemus (=Engystomops) pustulosus, responses to male mating signals in noise from multiple sensory modalities (acoustic and visual). Noise treatments were partitioned into three categories: acoustic, visual, and multimodal. We used natural calls from conspecifics and heterospecifics for acoustic noise. Robotic frogs were employed as either visual signal components (synchronous vocal sac inflation with call) or visual noise (asynchronous vocal sac inflation with call). Females expressed a preference for the typically more attractive call in the presence of unimodal noise. However, during multimodal signal and noise treatments (robofrogs employed with background noise), females failed to express a preference for the typically attractive call in the presence of conspecific chorus noise. We found that social context and temporal synchrony of multimodal signaling components are important for multimodal communication. Our results demonstrate that multimodal signals have the potential to increase the complexity of the sensory scene and reduce the efficacy of female decision making.

中文翻译：

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你能听到/看到我吗？信号的多感官整合并不总是有助于择偶

许多物种的雌性使用多种感觉方式选择配偶。然而，多模态噪声可能会出现在通过多种感觉方式进行交流的动物密集聚集中。一些证据表明，多模态信号可能并不总是能提高接收机的决策性能。当感觉系统处理来自多模态信号源的输入时，由于对认知整合任务的需求，可能会出现多模态噪声并可能使决策复杂化。我们测试了雌性 túngara 青蛙，Physalaemus (=Engystomops) pustulosus，对来自多种感官模式（声学和视觉）的噪音中的雄性交配信号的反应。噪声处理分为三类：声学、视觉和多模式。我们使用来自同种和异种的自然调用来处理声学噪声。机器人青蛙被用作视觉信号成分（同步声囊膨胀与呼叫）或视觉噪声（异步声囊膨胀与呼叫）。在存在单峰噪声的情况下，女性表达了对通常更具吸引力的呼叫的偏好。然而，在多模式信号和噪声处理（使用背景噪声的机器人）期间，雌性未能在存在同种合唱噪声的情况下表达对典型有吸引力的呼叫的偏好。我们发现多模式信号组件的社会背景和时间同步对于多模式通信很重要。我们的研究结果表明，多模式信号有可能增加感官场景的复杂性并降低女性决策的效率。