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Behavioral Ecology Vol. 11 No. 5: 502-506
© 2000 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

The cost of limited attention in blue jays

Reuven Dukas and Alan C. Kamil

Nebraska Behavioral Biology Group, School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0118, USA

Address correspondence to R. Dukas at the Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. E-mail: rdukas{at}sfu.ca .

Experiments with fish and birds suggest that animals are unable to simultaneously allocate sufficient attention to tasks such as the detection of an approaching predator while searching for cryptic prey. We quantified the effects of limited attention on performance in controlled laboratory settings and report here the first direct evidence that attending to a difficult central task simulating foraging deters a bird's ability to detect a peripheral target, which could be a predator. Our results fill a gap between ecological and neurobiological studies by illustrating that, although attention is an efficient filtering mechanism, limited attention may be a major cause of mortality in nature.

Key words: attention, blue jays, Cyanocitta cristata, survival, vigilance.


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