VISÃO DE CORES: DETECÇÃO DE INSETOS CONSPÍCUOS E CAMUFLADOS
EM CENÁRIOS NATURAIS POR DICROMATAS E TRICROMATAS HUMANOS
human evolution; evolution of vision; colorblind; search image; invertebrates;
Color vision can play an important role in identifying fruits rich in sugars, leaves,
flowers, and more palatable insects, as well as higher quality reproductive partners and
competitors, and predators. In humans, the majority have what is considered "normal" color
vision, while around 8% of men and 0.4% of women are color blind. Our goal is to
investigate the role of color vision and image formation in the ability of humans to identify
insects in natural conditions. To do so, we will select 30 dichromats with color discrimination
problems in the green/red axis and 4 groups of 30 trichromats each, aged 18-40, who will be
identified using the Ishihara and Hardy, Rand and Rittler (HRR) tests. We will collect data
under controlled conditions in the Sensory Ecology Laboratory (SEL) at the Federal
University of Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN, where volunteers will try to locate insects
(camouflaged and conspicuous) on a touch screen computer among 4 photos containing only
one with an insect and the other 3 with natural scenes. We will use Rstudio software to
analyze the data through a factorial ANOVA. We hypothesize that performance in detecting
camouflaged insects is influenced by color vision. We predict: 1) dichromat humans will
detect camouflaged insects more quickly and accurately than trichromats; 2) trichromat
individuals will detect conspicuous insects more quickly and accurately than dichromats; 3)
dichromats, but not trichromats, will improve their performance in identifying conspicuous
insects when presented in an increased size.