Optical Signals Animal Communication and Light

Why do visual signals have the characteristics that they do? Why do animals (including man) gesture, posture, and move in communicative fashions? Why are animals colored and patterned in particular ways? Optical Signals is the first attempt to answer these and related questions. After presenting a s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hailman, Jack Parker, 1936- (-)
Format: eBook
Language:Inglés
Published: Bloomington : Indiana University Press 1977
1977.
Subjects:
See on Biblioteca Universitat Ramon Llull:https://discovery.url.edu/permalink/34CSUC_URL/1im36ta/alma991009598322206719
Description
Summary:Why do visual signals have the characteristics that they do? Why do animals (including man) gesture, posture, and move in communicative fashions? Why are animals colored and patterned in particular ways? Optical Signals is the first attempt to answer these and related questions. After presenting a synthetic framework of social communication, ethology, mathematical information theory, and semiotics, Hailman explains the relevant background: considerations of the physics of light that carry information from sender to receiver, and properties that limit the receiver's ability to get and send information encoded in light. Next Hailman puts together data from different disciplines in order to discover the "design characteristics" of optical signals. The major part of the book concerns these design characteristics and factors that influence them: behavioral patterns and coloration that look like visual signals but are not, principles of visual deception, and the way in which the physical and biological environment structures the characteristics of signals. Lastly, the book considers how the message being transmitted influences the design of the signal itself.
Physical Description:1 online resource (1 online resource xix, 362 pages) : illustrations
ISBN:9780253050731