Study finds some birds process
sound much as people do, suggesting stream segregation is not a uniquely human
ability
Date: May 11, 2016
Source: University at Buffalo
While analyzing and untangling
multiple environmental sounds is an important social tool for humans, for
animals that analysis is a critical survival skill. Yet humans and animals use
similar cues to make sense of their acoustic worlds, according to new research
from the University at Buffalo.
The study, published in the Journal
of the Acoustical Society of America, fills an important gap in the literature
on how animals group sounds into auditory objects.
When several sounds occur
simultaneously in social settings, like music, a ticking clock and the buzz of
fluorescent lighting, humans have no difficulty identifying those as separate
auditory objects.
This is auditory stream
segregation.
"There have been many
studies like this in humans, but there has been a lot less work done to figure
out how animals parse auditory objects," says Micheal Dent, an associate
professor in UB's Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
"But animals can decipher
the auditory world in a similar way as humans," she says.
Dent's study used budgerigars
(parakeets) and zebra finches (songbirds), both vocal learners, to investigate
the utility of cues used in stream segregation of the zebra finches' song.
People use cues like intensity
(volume), frequency (pitch), location and time to segregate sounds. This
capacity can facilitate conversation in a noisy room, but for animals,
segregating sounds in the environment can mean the difference between
distinguishing a suitable mate from a potential predator.
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