附註:"A Bradford book."
Includes bibliographical references (pages 351-421) and indexes.
Portia perceptions : the umwelt of an araneophagic jumping spider / Duane P. Harland, Robert R. Jackson -- Exploration of cognitive capacity in honeybees : higher functions emerge from a small brain / Shaowu Zhang, Mandyam Srinivasan -- In the mind of a hunter : the visual world of the praying mantis / Karl Kral, Frederick R. Prete -- Motion perception shapes the visual world of amphibians / Jörg-Peter Ewert -- Color vision in bees : mechanisms, ecology, and evolution / Lars Chittka, Harrington Wells -- Color vision and retinal organization in butterflies / Kentaro Arikawa, Michiyo Kinoshita, Doekele G. Stavenga -- Seasonal variation in the visual world of crayfish / Takahiko Hariyama -- The unique visual world of mantis shrimps / Thomas W. Cronin, Justin Marshall -- The octopus's garden : the visual world of cephalopods / Ian G. Gleadall, Nadav Shashar -- The vigilance of the hunted : mechanosensory-visual integration in insect prey / Christopher Comer, Vicky Leung -- A novel approach to hearing : the acoustic world of pneumorid grasshoppers / Moira J. van Staaden, Heiner Romer, Vanessa C.K. Couldridge.
摘要:The authors of Complex Worlds from Simpler Nervous Systems explain how animals with small, often minuscule, nervous systems--jumping spiders, bees, praying mantids, toads, and others--are not the simple "reflex machines" they were once thought to be. Because these animals live in the same world as do much larger species, they must meet the same environmental challenges. They do so by constructing complex perceptual worlds within which they can weigh options, make decisions, integrate unique experiences, apply complex algorithms, and execute plans--and they must do this with thousands rather than the billions of neurons necessary for their larger counterparts. The authors of each chapter, leading neuroscientists and animal behaviorists, present their research in ways that allow the reader to understand this process from the animal's perspective. The first of the book's three parts, "Creating Visual Worlds: Using Abstract Representations and Algorithms," examines the visual worlds of jumping spiders, honeybees, praying mantids, and toads. Part II, "Enhancing the Visual Basics: Using Color and Polarization," explores color vision and light polarization perception in honeybees, butterflies, crayfish, mantis shrimps, and octopuses. The final part, "Out of Sight: Creating Extravisual Worlds," examines the complex integration of visual and mechanosensory information in the cockroach and the unique auditory world of the unusual bladder grasshopper. All of these fascinating stories can be read both for what they teach us about the perceptual worlds of little animals, and for what they suggest about the general organizing principles of all central nervous systems, both "simple" and complex.
