Bio11270 1..9

Visualmotion, acritical cue in communication, canbemanipulated and studiedusing videoplaybackmethods.A primary concern for the video playback researcher is the degree towhich objects presented on video appear natural to the non-human subject. Here we argue that the quality of motion cues on video, as determined by the video’s image presentation rate (IPR), are of particular importance in determining a subject’s social responsebehaviour.Wepresent anexperiment testing the effect of variations in IPR on pigeon (Columbia livia) response behaviour towards video images of courting opposite sex partners. Male and female pigeons were presented with three video playback stimuli, each containing a different social partner. Each stimulus was then modified to appear at one of three IPRs: 15, 30 or 60 progressive (p) frames per second. The results showed that courtship behaviour became significantly longer in duration as IPR increased. This finding implies that the IPR significantly affects the perceived quality of motion cues impacting social behaviour. Inmaleswe found that the duration of courtship also depended on the social partner viewed and that this effect interacted with the effects of IPR on behaviour. Specifically, the effect of social partner reached statistical significance only when the stimuli were displayed at 60 p, demonstrating the potential for erroneous results when insufficient IPRs are used. In addition to demonstrating the importance of IPR in video playback experiments, these findings help to highlight and describe the role of visual motion processing in communication behaviour.