Abstract
Perceptually, grou** sounds based on their sources is critical for communication. This is especially true in túngara frog breeding aggregations, where multiple males produce overlap** calls that consist of an FM ‘whine’ followed by harmonic bursts called ‘chucks’. Phonotactic females use at least two cues to group whines and chucks: whine-chuck spatial separation and sequence. Spatial separation is a primitive cue, whereas sequence is schema-based, as chuck production is morphologically constrained to follow whines, meaning that males cannot produce the components simultaneously. When one cue is available, females perceptually group whines and chucks using relative comparisons: components with the smallest spatial separation or those closest to the natural sequence are more likely grouped. By simultaneously varying the temporal sequence and spatial separation of a single whine and two chucks, this study measured between-cue perceptual weighting during a specific grou** task. Results show that whine-chuck spatial separation is a stronger grou** cue than temporal sequence, as grou** is more likely for stimuli with smaller spatial separation and non-natural sequence than those with larger spatial separation and natural sequence. Compared to the schema-based whine-chuck sequence, we propose that spatial cues have less variance, potentially explaining their preferred use when grou** during directional behavioral responses.
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Acknowledgements
R. Taylor, R. Rosencrans, and N. Bazan generously provided advice and/or equipment for the project. The manuscript was improved by comments from two reviewers. HEF was supported by NIH Grant P20RR016816 (N. Bazan, PI). MJR was supported by NSF Grant (IOS 1120031; R. Taylor and R. Page Co-PIs). All behavioral procedures were licensed and approved by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (IACUC permit: 2011-0825-2014-02).
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All behavioral procedures were licensed and approved by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (IACUC permit: 2011-0825-2014-02).
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Farris, H.E., Ryan, M.J. Schema vs. primitive perceptual grou**: the relative weighting of sequential vs. spatial cues during an auditory grou** task in frogs. J Comp Physiol A 203, 175–182 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-017-1149-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-017-1149-9