Talk:Signalling theory/Archive 1

Untitled
Shouldnt it be 'signaling'? --Mike Spenard 21:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No. WP standard is to use whichever, US or proper :) English, was used first in the article's history, then re-direct as appropriate if the article's title is spelling sensitive, see Signaling theory. -- Cheers, Pete.Hurd 02:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Honest signals
I have some reservations about this section (well, I have some reservations about the term in general, see Hurd & Enquist 2005 Animal Behaviour 70:1155-1170 for explanation why). I think this section would best be turned from "honest signals" into "evolutionarily stable signals" without changing most of the meaning of the section a whole lot (but some clean-up will be required). Pete.Hurd 15:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis also deserves some attention, if we could find a bold expert willign to tackle it. Not that is it difficult; the difficult part is seeing others :correct: your work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.47.64 (talk) 09:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Clean up suggestions: Honest and dishonest are technical terms that depend on the benefit to the receiver, and either type can be evolutionarily stable. Costly signaling leads to forced honesty. Mutual benefit leads to unforced honesty. 128.84.65.39 (talk) 21:52, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Signalling theory limited to animals?
Forgive me for my ignorance but I'm very new to this area. Is signalling theory necessarily limited to animals? Could plants, for example, be studied in signalling theory? If it is just animals this should be made clear in the first sentence by linking to animal communication, but since I'm not certain it couldn't apply to other organisms capable of sending and receiving stimuli, I don't wish to add it myself. Richard001 06:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Ethology
I suggest to add the Article also to this Category:Ethology. Please, consider it. Franta Oashi (talk) 22:05, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Also, how about some category for Category:Theoretical biology?  Rhetth (talk) 15:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Signaling theory and labeling
I added this on the discussion page since my addition of labeling (and peacock) in 'See also' was reverted. Here are some explanation. I am not going however to add it back.

The objective of the signals that are emitted are then contributing to labelling the person (or more exactly Label (sociology)), i.e. categorising the person based on first impression. This can contribute to attribution bias. peacocking is related to the behavior of sending signal making the person more visible. --Nabeth (talk) 12:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm curious, Do you have a reliable source linking the sociological concept of label to the topic of this article, or is the comparison original to you? I see you also added a "citation needed" tag to the claim that mathematical models are the principal form of research in this field, do you think that is a contentious claim, do you have counter-evidence? Pete.Hurd (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Not really. This is just an impression. There is something to be done with signaling and sociology (and more precisely in Social cognition). I remember to have read in the past some papers about the importance of clothes and status in the middle age (people were not allowed to wear whatever their liked). Concerning peacocking, I see a relatively direct connection with signaling (and animal behavior). Some work will have to be done finding these references. This is something I may have to search for and that I will have in the back of my head. I however have just put this comment in the discussion page. Besides, probably signaling in a social context (something about social role) is something that would probably need to have a page on its own (and for instance connect to Dress code). Just an example of reference that I was able to find easily: The fashioned body: fashion, dress, and modern social theory --Nabeth (talk) 16:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, indeed, I was thinking about the reference of some of the work indicated in the book Blink (book) from Malcolm Gladwell. I get the impression that there is indeed something missing in this Wikipedia article. --Nabeth (talk) 17:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * about 'I see you also added a "citation needed"'. Actually, as I was surprised to see my previous entry rejected, I tried to understand why. I got the impression that there was a biais towards mathematics in this article that is about evolutionary psychology (which is also connected at some point to social psychology). Concerning the sentence that I have asked for a reference there are two reasons: (1) first I was surprise by the sentence, and therefore would have been interested if some references existed. (2) Looking at all the references to the research papers cited in this article, I got the impression that this assertion was not correct. In summary, I was curious to have more information (and for instance evidence) about this assertion. --Nabeth (talk) 16:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the lead is misleading by using the word "communication" with the suggestion that the topic is just another social studies or psychology topic. It's not – it's hard science concerning evolution. There may not be a source about mathematical models because the material simply uses such models. Johnuniq (talk) 23:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * In that case, the definition should need be updated then . However in that case I may not agree with your definition, in the sense that in my opinion it would be too narrow, and contributing to 'sterilise' the subject (I apologize if I am wrong with the phrasing, and I do not want to be polemical here). The definition that you indicated refere only to the 'micro' perspective of signaling. I would suggest here to also have the 'macro' perspective of signaling (and idealy also the meso, i.e. how the micro and macro articulate). I believe that even your (micro) conceptualisation of signaling could benefit from this. Another solution would be to have a new separate page about the macro perspective of signaling (and in particular the sociological perspective). But I believ it would need a small 'incumbation' phase, and there are some chance for it to be kill by very zealous 'patrolers', or require a huge amount of effort. To finish, I personaly do not believe that evolutionary psychology is only about the micro perspective, but thay may only be an opinion. Best regards, --Nabeth (talk) 09:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Just rereading the definition, I see that what it indicated is evolutionary biology, and not evolutionary psychology. However, looking at the core of the article, I get the impression that the content is larger than evolutionary biology, and in particular when applied to humans. So, there is probably some work to be done here so that Wikipedia cover the different concepts (maybe renaming the article: signalling (evolutionary biology) and having a desambuguating page on signaling would help?). --Nabeth (talk) 09:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, evolutionary psychology is a subfield of evolutionary biology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.40.5.245 (talk) 15:30, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * signalling (evolutionary biology) would be Animal communication (which is a fairly distinct topic), I suggest leaving the article at Signalling theory unless WP:RS are uncovered to show another discipline has a "signalling theory" that needs to be disambiguated. As for the "macro" material, I suggest you start by finding sources that meet WP:RS, my impression is that your reverted contributions were felt to be original research.  As for the "fact" tag you added to the lede, my understanding of WP:LEDE was that references were strongly discouraged in the lede, and were expected to be added to that body. Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. And do not worry, my intention was not to make the changes, but just to do a little bit of brainstorming on the idea. Note: Not sure that Animal communication is similar to signaling. I would believe that signaling is only a sub-category of communication. Best regards. --Nabeth (talk) 16:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Depends if one tried to shoehorn in Cell signaling, Signal (biology) etc. Pete.Hurd (talk)

Sexual Selection
I know that if I change this, it will just be reverted, so it is maybe better to discuss it, and then change it.

As much as I like secual selection, and the fact that a large part of signallign theory is done under the auspicies of sexual seleciton, the sub-heading and accompanying paragraph seem out of place here. A lot of information about sexual signalling is geivne afterwards, but here it is jsut mentioned and explaiend briefly, completley out of context. If anything ther should be a contrast between sexually selcted and naturally selcted signalling. Anyway, enough about sexual seleciton is covered afterwards. My inclunaiton was to delete this section, but I will wait a little and at the very least try ot explain myself first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.40.5.245 (talk) 15:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Zahavi's handicap hypothesis - some important missing angles... ?
It seems to me that if females choose males who can afford ostentatious displays because of their general fitness then the benefits of the genes that allow them to remain this fit despite their handicap are accrued to female and juvenile male offspring as well as the adult males that take on the display characteristics. This seems to me to be the most obvious reason why choosing display-handicapped males is BETTER than selectively neutral. Another possibility is that females have nothing to loose for selecting the most ostentatious display because selection for more elaborate and more handicapping displays has reached the point of being constrained not by an equillibrium of selection pressures between attractiveness and practicality but by some kind of genetic constraint (e.g. their being no more alleles to select for sexier traits). At this point the consequence of female trait selection would not be to increase a trait that could increase mortality without increasing reproductive gains but to pick up correlated traits that are unequivocally advantageous. I don't know if these ideas are outlined anywhere in literature but they seem so reasonable to me that I feel sure they must be. If anyone can find such ideas in real peer-assessed literature I think it would be nice to see them here. I don't know if I thought these ideas up myself or if they are relicts of things I read years ago that ought to be in here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by U10ajf (talk • contribs) 02:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Sports Metaphor Section
The last line "These red, orange and yellow carotenoid-dependent ornaments are hypothesized to be a general form of an immunocompetence handicap,[24] and a specific mechanism by which the handicap principle might work." is incorrect and contradictory. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH) is a different hypothesis that, it seems is not mentioned in this article, but it should be. Carotenoid-dependent sexual selection cannot be BOTH a general form AND a specific mechanism by which ICCH works. However, the ICHH should be covered in this article. I would, but it is better to build a dialogue first rather than make a change and see it "corrected" the next day.

You are right. Hey, I would do it, but I am an actual expert, and then I would be accused of bias, as we have seen elsewhere in this article. No thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.47.64 (talk) 09:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Sports Metaphor Section
The last line "These red, orange and yellow carotenoid-dependent ornaments are hypothesized to be a general form of an immunocompetence handicap,[24] and a specific mechanism by which the handicap principle might work." is incorrect and contradictory. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH) is a different hypothesis that, it seems is not mentioned in this article, but it should be. Carotenoid-dependent sexual selection cannot be BOTH a general form AND a specific mechanism by which ICCH works. However, the ICHH should be covered in this article. I would, but it is better to build a dialogue first rather than make a change and see it "corrected" the next day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.190.47.64 (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2012 (UTC)