Experimental evidence that primate trichromacy is well suited for detecting primate social colour signals.

ABSTRACT: Primate trichromatic colour vision has been hypothesized to be well tuned for detecting variation in facial coloration, which could be due to selection on either signal wavelengths or the sensitivities of the photoreceptors themselves. We provide one of the first empirical tests of this idea by asking whether, when compared with other visual systems, the information obtained through primate trichromatic vision confers an improved ability to detect the changes in facial colour that female macaque monkeys exhibit when they are proceptive. We presented pairs of digital images of faces of the same monkey to human observers and asked them to select the proceptive face. We tested images that simulated what would be seen by common catarrhine trichromatic vision, two additional trichromatic condit

SUBMITTER: Hiramatsu C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5474062 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature