Abstract
Behavioral methods have been critical in the study of auditory perception and discrimination in fishes. In this chapter, we review some of the common methods used in fish psychoacoustics. We discuss associative methods, such as operant, avoidance, and classical conditioning, and their use in constructing audiograms, measuring frequency selectivity, and auditory stream segregation. We also discuss the measurement of innate behavioral responses, such as the acoustic startle response (ASR), prepulse inhibition (PPI), and phonotaxis, and their use in the assessment of fish hearing to determine auditory thresholds and in the testing of mechanisms for sound source localization. For each psychoacoustic method, we provide examples of their use and discuss the parameters and situations where such methods can be best utilized. In the case of the ASR, we show how this method can be used to construct and compare audiograms between two species of larval fishes, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and the zebrafish (Danio rerio). We also discuss considerations for experimental design with respect to stimulus presentation and threshold criteria and how these techniques can be used in future studies to investigate auditory perception in fishes.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Drs. Arthur Popper and Richard Fay for inspiration and guidance, both directly and indirectly. Much of the work highlighted in this chapter draws from the influential research studies of Drs. Popper and Fay and has been a source of inspiration for AAB’s dissertation research. AAB and JAS have had the pleasure of working with Dick Fay directly in sound localization studies of the plainfin midshipman fish at the UC Bodega Marine Laboratory. It was during these studies that AAB first met Dick as a first-year graduate student, and received some of his wisdom and advice about how to conduct psychoacoustic studies of fish hearing. We would like to thank and acknowledge Drs. Richard Fay and David Zeddies, as the first to propose the idea of using prepulse inhibition to measure auditory function in fishes. Although we have not directly collaborated with Dr. Arthur Popper, his influence has been a significant force through not only his research, but through his legacy of former students and post-docs.
AAB thanks Drs. David Raible, Edwin Rubel, and Catherine Peichel for support and advice. We would also like to thank Drs. Allison Coffin, Kelly Owens, Peter Alderks, and Liz Whitchurch for discussions of auditory systems and hearing in fishes.
AAB’s research has been supported in part by NIH grant 2T32DC005361-11.
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Bhandiwad, A.A., Sisneros, J.A. (2016). Revisiting Psychoacoustic Methods for the Assessment of Fish Hearing. In: Sisneros, J. (eds) Fish Hearing and Bioacoustics. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 877. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21059-9_8
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