A Bridge between Animal Psychology and Sexual Selection: Possible Effects of Habituation and Neural Adaptation on Mate Choice Signals

Psychological mechanisms involved in perceiving and processing sensory information likely influence how sexual selection acts on mate choice signals. Two such mechanisms are habituation and neural adaptation. Both are nearly universal, and doubtless affect female perception and analysis of male mate choice signals, thus potentially affecting male reproductive success. Habituation may be especially important because it affects the female’s attention. Both likely favor greater variation in mate choice signals, contrary to many typological models of mate choice based on “the” male display behavior of a species. They may favor variation in the sites on the female’s body that are stimulated by male somatosensory stimuli, as well as signal intensity and rates and patterns of repetition. Both habituation and neural adaptation are advantageous under natural selection and could provide original, naturally selected biases in female responses that lead to Fisherian runaway evolution under sexual selection by female choice. The multiplicity of mechanisms affecting habituation and neural adaption may help explain the general evolutionary trend for male mate choice signals to diverge rapidly. Avoidance of female habituation and sensory adaptation may explain the previously unremarked but widespread trend in vertebrates and arthropods for male genitalia to make rhythmic, repetitive movements during copulation.