Startle, categorical response, and attention in acoustic behavior of insects.

There are three categories of auditory behavior that are often considered to be the province of psychophysicists and neurobiologists who study higher mammals, including humans, for which behavioral analogs might be expected to be found in insects. These behaviors are (a) categorical pcrception, (b) acoustic startle, and (c) selective attention. Categorical perception can be defined as the behavioral segmentation of a stimulus that varies continuously along some physical parameter. For example, in the case of sound, sharp behavioral (or perceptual) boundaries that define distinctly different behavioral acts can be drawn along the dimension of spectral frequency. Acoustic startle can be defined as a short-latency, characteristic sequence of muscle contractions, elicited by the sudden onset of a sound, especially one that is loud, unexpected, and potentially threatening. Selective attention has been defined as "that process by which an organism chooses to deal more effectively with one type of sensory stimulus at the expense of other stimuli" (Robinson & Petersen 1986). J present evidence that with appropriate amendments of definition to take into account surplus meaning (cognitive implications) in the original con­ cepts as applied to humans, categorical perception, acoustic startle, and selective attention can be studied in such creatures of modest behavioral means as crickets, moths, praying mantises, and green lacewings.