Definition
Honest signaling conveys information that is a true indicator of the underlying quality of the sender and it is useful to the receiver.
Introduction
In animal communication, information is transmitted from a sender (signaler) to a receiver, and the receiver acts upon the signal (McFarland 2006). Signals can be “honest” when giving reliable information or “dishonest” when the sender is sending out false information to a receiver (Laidre and Johnstone 2013).
Evolution of Honest Signaling
According to signaling theory for a signal to be preserved in the population, the interaction should be beneficial for the sender and receiver. Furthermore, the honest signal should convey information that the receiver cannot obtain in another way. Honest signaling does not need to be perfectly informative, but it needs to be useful, so that certain behavioral responses to the signal are advantageous, in comparison with the behavior that would occur in absence of the signal. Therefore, honest...
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Petak, I. (2019). Honest Signaling. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1666-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1666-1
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