Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.

Weber's law quantifies the perception of difference between stimuli. For instance, it can explain why we are less likely to detect the removal of three nuts from a bowl if the bowl is full than if it is nearly empty. This is an example of the magnitude effect - the phenomenon that the subjectiv...

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Autores principales:	Vladislav Nachev, Kai Petra Stich, York Winter
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/298e4c31a1014d6eb4bd381eec1051bf
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:298e4c31a1014d6eb4bd381eec1051bf2021-11-18T08:55:59ZWeber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0074144https://doaj.org/article/298e4c31a1014d6eb4bd381eec1051bf2013-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24040189/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Weber's law quantifies the perception of difference between stimuli. For instance, it can explain why we are less likely to detect the removal of three nuts from a bowl if the bowl is full than if it is nearly empty. This is an example of the magnitude effect - the phenomenon that the subjective perception of a linear difference between a pair of stimuli progressively diminishes when the average magnitude of the stimuli increases. Although discrimination performances of both human and animal subjects in various sensory modalities exhibit the magnitude effect, results sometimes systematically deviate from the quantitative predictions based on Weber's law. An attempt to reformulate the law to better fit data from acoustic discrimination tasks has been dubbed the "near-miss to Weber's law". Here, we tested the gustatory discrimination performance of nectar-feeding bats (Glossophaga soricina), in order to investigate whether the original version of Weber's law accurately predicts choice behavior in a two-alternative forced choice task. As expected, bats either preferred the sweeter of the two options or showed no preference. In 4 out of 6 bats the near-miss to Weber's law provided a better fit and Weber's law underestimated the magnitude effect. In order to test the generality of this observation in nectar-feeders, we reviewed previously published data on bats, hummingbirds, honeybees, and bumblebees. In all groups of animals the near-miss to Weber's law provided better fits than Weber's law. Furthermore, whereas the magnitude effect was stronger than predicted by Weber's law in vertebrates, it was weaker than predicted in insects. Thus nectar-feeding vertebrates and insects seem to differ in how their choice behavior changes as sugar concentration is increased. We discuss the ecological and evolutionary implications of the observed patterns of sugar concentration discrimination.Vladislav NachevKai Petra StichYork WinterPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 9, p e74144 (2013)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Vladislav Nachev Kai Petra Stich York Winter Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
description	Weber's law quantifies the perception of difference between stimuli. For instance, it can explain why we are less likely to detect the removal of three nuts from a bowl if the bowl is full than if it is nearly empty. This is an example of the magnitude effect - the phenomenon that the subjective perception of a linear difference between a pair of stimuli progressively diminishes when the average magnitude of the stimuli increases. Although discrimination performances of both human and animal subjects in various sensory modalities exhibit the magnitude effect, results sometimes systematically deviate from the quantitative predictions based on Weber's law. An attempt to reformulate the law to better fit data from acoustic discrimination tasks has been dubbed the "near-miss to Weber's law". Here, we tested the gustatory discrimination performance of nectar-feeding bats (Glossophaga soricina), in order to investigate whether the original version of Weber's law accurately predicts choice behavior in a two-alternative forced choice task. As expected, bats either preferred the sweeter of the two options or showed no preference. In 4 out of 6 bats the near-miss to Weber's law provided a better fit and Weber's law underestimated the magnitude effect. In order to test the generality of this observation in nectar-feeders, we reviewed previously published data on bats, hummingbirds, honeybees, and bumblebees. In all groups of animals the near-miss to Weber's law provided better fits than Weber's law. Furthermore, whereas the magnitude effect was stronger than predicted by Weber's law in vertebrates, it was weaker than predicted in insects. Thus nectar-feeding vertebrates and insects seem to differ in how their choice behavior changes as sugar concentration is increased. We discuss the ecological and evolutionary implications of the observed patterns of sugar concentration discrimination.
format	article
author	Vladislav Nachev Kai Petra Stich York Winter
author_facet	Vladislav Nachev Kai Petra Stich York Winter
author_sort	Vladislav Nachev
title	Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
title_short	Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
title_full	Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
title_fullStr	Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
title_full_unstemmed	Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
title_sort	weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2013
url	https://doaj.org/article/298e4c31a1014d6eb4bd381eec1051bf
work_keys_str_mv	AT vladislavnachev weberslawthemagnitudeeffectanddiscriminationofsugarconcentrationsinnectarfeedinganimals AT kaipetrastich weberslawthemagnitudeeffectanddiscriminationofsugarconcentrationsinnectarfeedinganimals AT yorkwinter weberslawthemagnitudeeffectanddiscriminationofsugarconcentrationsinnectarfeedinganimals
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Weber's law, the magnitude effect and discrimination of sugar concentrations in nectar-feeding animals.

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