Figure 1. Evolved discrimination of four niches (I–IV) in signal space for homozygotes AA, BB and the heterozygote AB.

Solid black dots represent beneficial niches and white dots detrimental niches, shown in the two-dimensional signal space. Dashed lines represent schematic linear discrimination by the hidden neurons 1 and 2 associated with the two super-genes SG1 and SG2. Genotype AA is homozygote in SG2 with d₁ that performs discrimination between resource I and II–IV, whereas the modifier m in SG1 does not perform any discrimination between resources in homozygote form. Genotype BB is homozygote with two discriminators, d₂ that discriminate resource I and II from III and IV, and d₃ that discrimate resource IV from the others. In SG1 of the heterozygote AB, m modifies the expression of d₃ to discriminate resource I from the others. SG2 of AB is heterozygote d₁d₂ and does not perform any discrimination. The areas with stripes from upper-left to lower-right represent areas where the output neuron is inhibited whereas areas with stripes from lower-left to upper-right represent areas where the output neuron is excited.