Cue Disparity and Visual Selective Attention in Praying Mantises

Abstract

Research on insect selective attention has typically investigated it using stimuli in a single plane. The importance of cues to depth, such as stereoscopic disparity, is less well understood. Recent findings on the neurobiology of mantis stereopsis demonstrated centrifugal neuronal connections from the central brain to peripheral optic areas, suggesting the possibility of attentional modulation. To test this, we investigated whether the disparity of a prior cue influences mantis tracking of 3D targets. We fitted mantises with 3D glasses and presented them with a cue, followed by two 3D stimuli: a high contrast target and a distractor with different contrasts. The cue appeared either on the side of the target or the distractor. We varied the disparity of the cue and measured the influence of the cue on the probability of head saccades to the target. Our results show that, compared to the uncued condition, cues with a crossed or an uncrossed disparity reduced head saccades to a single target when presented on the opposite side of the screen. These effects were not seen for cues with zero disparity. The effects of cues of different disparities did not themselves differ significantly, but crossed and uncrossed disparity cues had a stronger effect than zero disparity cues. Our results show that mantis selective attention is influenced by the presence and position of prior cues with a potential influence of cue disparity. This adds further evidence for the complexity of attention-like processes in insects.