chemical communication

the use of odorants and other substances (see external chemical messenger) to transmit information between individuals. Many nonhuman animals have specialized scent glands for scent production and specialized behavior for depositing scents. Chemical signals communicate the identity of species, subspecies, and individuals; reproductive status; dominance status; fear; and territorial boundaries. An advantage of chemical communication is that signals can remain long after the communicator has left.

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Psychology term of the day

January 14th 2025

Kruskal–Shepard scaling

a type of multidimensional scaling applied to judgments of similarity or dissimilarity for pairs of items (e.g., cities). The dissimilarities are represented by distances between items in a highly dimensional space: Larger distances indicate greater dissimilarity. [William Henry Kruskal (1919–2005), U.S. statistician; Roger N. Shepard (1929– ), U.S. experimental and cognitive psychologist]