The Dual Nature of Mimicry: Organismal Form and Beholder's Eye

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F19%3A10408642" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/19:10408642 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=o.mOO7INIc" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=o.mOO7INIc</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12304-018-9333-z" target="_blank" >10.1007/s12304-018-9333-z</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Dual Nature of Mimicry: Organismal Form and Beholder's Eye

Original language description

Mimicry is often cited as a compelling demonstration of the power of natural selection. By adopting signs of a protected model, mimics usually gain a reproductive advantage by minimising the likelihood of being preyed upon. Yet while natural selection plays a role in the evolution of mimicry, it can be doubted whether it fully explains it. Mimicry is mediated by the emergence of formally analogous patterns (visual, olfactory, or acoustic) between unrelated organisms and by the fact that these patterns are meaningfully perceived as similar. The perception of similarity is always perceiver-dependent. Similarities between for instance colours are psychophysical phenomena, and their existence is conditioned by an intimate interdependence between perceivers and perceptible reality. In this sense, mimicry is by its very nature dualistic. The analogy in form needed to establish a mimicry does not emerge out of the blue. It depends on the ecological context and the morphogenetic potential of a species. In our proposal, we take into account both the developmental generators of formally analogous structures and the perceptual and cognitive processes that lead to the emergence of mimicry. We show that some of the rather controversial and nowadays largely neglected ideas found in non-Anglo-Saxon literature on mimicry (e.g. writings by Th. Eimer, F. Heikertinger, or N. Vavilov) deserve closer attention. We suggest that the diversity of mimicry types is due to differences in variational properties of form-generating and perceptual systems among diverse groups of organisms. We also anticipate that processes studied within social psychology and emotion research (such as the formation of a first impression or activation of the fear module) probably take place, at least in a simplified form, also in non-human animals. Finally, we argue that these meaning-attributive processes underlie the functionality of mimicry.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10600 - Biological sciences

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Biosemiotics

ISSN

1875-1342

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

12

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

20

Pages from-to

79-98

UT code for WoS article

000467398500006

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85054338387