Separate attentional processes in the two visual systems of jumping spiders
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Abstract
By selectively focusing on a specific portion of the environment, animals can solve the problem of information overload, toning down irrelevant inputs and concentrate only on the relevant ones. This may be of particular relevance for animals such as the jumping spider, which possess a wide visual field of almost 360° and thus could benefit from a low-cost system for sharpening attention. Jumping spiders have a modular visual system composed of four pairs of eyes, of which only the two frontal eyes (i.e., AMEs) are motile, whereas the other secondary pairs remain immobile. We hypothesized that jumping spiders can exploit both primary and secondary eyes for stimulus detection and attentional shift, with the two systems working synergistically. In Experiment 1 we investigated AMEs’ attentional responses following a spatial cue presented to the secondary eyes. In Experiment 2, we tested for enhanced attention in the secondary eyes’ visual field congruent with the direction of the AMEs’ focus. In both experiments, we observed that animals were faster and more accurate in detecting a target when it appeared in a direction opposite to that of the initial cue. In contrast with our initial hypothesis, these results would suggest that attention is segregated across eyes, while each system works to compensate the other by attending to different spatial locations, rather than sharing a common attentional focus.
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Results
It would be interesting to see if there are differences in response rates and results if you separated the collected specimens by sex. Although I'm not sure if this applies in the context of M. semilimbatus, in some cases there have been instances of sex-related differences in attention and memory.
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We observed, contrary to ourexpectations
This indeed is a surprising finding! The hypothesis presented for a sort of "competitive attention" is interesting, but it's hard without a clear presentation of the data (both in the text and additional figures) for me to tell whether it is the only, or best supported hypothesis. Would you be able to present alternative hypothesis and show which are supported or refuted by the data? This is particularly useful in cases like this one, where there is a well-established literature (as stated in the introduction) but the findings do not fit into the prevailing theory
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spherical treadmill
Considering that spiders are also extremely sensitive to vibration, have you considered whether different environmental conditions could be the cause of the spider's reaction rather than due to the sensory input? Perhaps the environment was controlled for this but not stated in the paper?
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Results
For all the results, I see the results from GLMM analysis, but don't see as much description of the underlying data clearly stated (e.g. probability of "saccade" per subject, per session, per condition etc.). Clearly presenting this information would be extremely helpful for understanding the outcomes of these experiments.
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alternating between black and white for 0.15 seconds at a speed of 30hz
I'm interested in this particular stimulation. What was the rationale for having a "flash" that alternates rather than flashing by increasing luminance and keeping that value steady? Similarly, for alternating why was 30Hz used? Do you think the nature of the cue here will alter the results?
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Overall procedure
This section is very detailed! I'm finding it hard to visualize the placement of the spider, the field of view for the AME and secondary eyes, and the location of the visual stimuli. Could you include a schematic to clarify the experimental setup?
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