Sexual signals contain information on individual quality or motivation, and most explanations for their reliability are based on signal costs. A recent suggestion is that signaling mistakes, defined as deviations from typical signal design, provide cues on individual quality, contributing to reliable communication even when signal design is not costly. We describe several atypical song traits i...

Social life consists of making mistakes, then correcting them. The big questions do not concern who makes the fewest mistakes and why, but whether the mistakes are fruitful, how fast people recognize them, and how well they correct them. The same principles apply to writing books, even if the interaction and error-correction take longer to operate than in everyday conversation. This symposium’s...

August 2005 | Volume 2 | Issue 8 | e272 " Truth in science can be defi ned as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one. " —Konrad Lorenz, Austria S cientifi c truth is a moving target. In the process of peer review, authors, reviewers, and editors work together to minimize the reporting of false results. However, even if one assumes no bias, wrongdoing, or ignor...

The characteristics of natural environments, as well as the limitations on representations, sensors, and actuators, make navigational mistakes inevitable. This paper looks at how to detect and diagnose mistakes autonomous mobile robots make while navigating through large-scale space using vision. Mistakes are perceptual, cognitive, or motor events that divert one from the intended route. Detect...