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Vocal Production by Terrestrial Mammals: Source, Filter, and Function

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Vertebrate Sound Production and Acoustic Communication

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR,volume 53))

Abstract

In little over two decades, researchers have moved from a situation in which most studies of terrestrial mammal vocal signals focused on conspicuous characteristics, such as their rate of occurrence, and where the spectral acoustic variation was largely ignored or poorly quantified, to a field of study in which there is a much better understanding of the nature and function of the acoustic parameters that compose vocalizations. The source-filter theory, originally developed for the analysis of speech signals, has played a large role in this progress. Understanding how the acoustic variability of vocalizations is grounded within their mechanism of production has enabled researchers to predict the type of information that vocal signals are likely to contain, and to predict their co-variation with morphological and/or physiological attributes of callers. Moreover, the powerful theoretical platform derived from the source-filter theory not just conceptually supports the formulation of multilevel hypotheses, but also paves the way to develop the corresponding methodologies needed to address them. Although the full range of acoustic diversity of terrestrial mammal signals has yet to be explored, this chapter draws together a wealth of research conducted over the last two decades, and describes how source- and filter-related acoustic components encode functionally relevant information in the vocal communication systems of terrestrial mammal and how selection pressures have led to the evolution of anatomical innovations that enable animals to produce exaggerated vocal traits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9QH, UK

    Anna M. Taylor & David Reby

  2. School of Biology and Environmental Science, Science Centre West, University College Dublin (UCD), Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Benjamin D. Charlton

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  1. Medical Science, Jordan Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Roderick A. Suthers

  2. Dept. of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    W. Tecumseh Fitch

  3. Marine Biological Laboratory, Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard R. Fay

  4. College Park, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

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Taylor, A.M., Charlton, B.D., Reby, D. (2016). Vocal Production by Terrestrial Mammals: Source, Filter, and Function. In: Suthers, R., Fitch, W., Fay, R., Popper, A. (eds) Vertebrate Sound Production and Acoustic Communication. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27721-9_8

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