Our unconscious perspectives, roles, associations, preferences, and archetypes are with us constantly, and we have learned them in a slow and subtle way.
For example, in a 10 minute assay, female mice mated to males they preferred to associate with in a two-way mate choice apparatus had offspring with greater viability than females mated to males they did not prefer to associate with [ 5]; similar results were found in a male association preference assay [ 6].
The association preference of the test fish can be measured by recording the time each fish spends within a certain distance of each stimulus.
In dichotomous association preference tests we presented animations of resident and cave males (CA-II) to lab-reared surface females from RO and EA.
To test our predictions, we conducted dichotomous female mate choice tests (association preference tests) and repeated the tests while either a natural molly predator (' Cichlasoma' salvini, Cichlidae) or a non-piscivorous fish (three types: two cichlids and another poeciliid, the green swordtail, Xiphophorus hellerii) were presented.
We are therefore confident that association preferences in fact translate into more copulations with the preferred male also in P. mexicana.
We recorded shoal size, rates of movement and association preferences for familiar fish.
In some fish, including killifish (Fundulus diaphanus), association preferences for size-matched fish occur both when shoal-mates are conspecific and when they are heterospecific [20],[20].
MHC loci regulate both immunity to bacteria [ 13] and association preferences among tadpoles [ 10].
In plants, siRNAs of different lengths are produced by different DCL family proteins and exhibit different AGO protein association preferences [13].
Furthermore, a recent study by Walling et al. [ 64] experimentally demonstrated that female association preferences actually do translate into male reproductive success in green swordtails, Xiphophorus hellerii (Poeciliidae).
