The Detection and Evasion of 

 Bats by Moths' 



I 



By Kenneth D. Roeder 



Tufts University 

 and 



Asher E. Treat 



City College of New York 



[With 6 plates] 



A CENTRAL objective of a large segment of biological and psycho- 

 logical research is to provide a physiological basis for behavior. The 

 first step toward this objective is analytic, and consists of determining 

 the structure and function of neural components after they have been 

 isolated from their connections with the rest of the nervous system. 

 There has been much progress in this direction, and it is now possible 

 to describe in terms of input and output performance the operation 

 of many isolated sense cells, neurons, and muscle fibers, even though 

 the principles of their internal operation are mostly not understood. 



The next step, the synthetic process of assembling this information 

 on isolated neural components and relating it to the behavior of the 

 intact animal, is hampered by two kinds of difficulty. The first appears 

 to be methodological, but is somewhat hard to define. "Wlien one re- 

 gards the evergrowing literature on the unit performance of sense cells, 

 nerve cells, and muscle fibers, it is to experience that sense of dismay 

 first encountered at a tender age when the springs, gears, and screws 

 of one's first watch were strewn upon the table. The modus operandi 

 of analysis or taking apart seems to come naturally, and the problems 

 encountered are essentially technical in nature. Synthesis or the der- 

 ivation of a system from its components seems to lack the a priori 

 logic of analysis. 



The second general difficulty is technical, and stems from the fact 

 that even the simplest behavior of the higher animals and man is ac- 



1 Reprinted from American Scientist, vol. 49, No. 2, June 1961. Copyrighted 1961, by 

 The Society of the Sigma Xi and reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Much 

 of the experimental work reported In this paper was made possible by Grant E-947 from 

 the U.S. Public Health Service. 



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