The effect of preceding sonar emission on temporal integration in the bat, Megaderma lyra

Abstract

The present study investigated whether and to which extent temporal integration in bats is influenced by echolocation behavior. One way to quantify temporal integration is to measure the detection threshold for a pair of short tone pips as a function of the temporal separation between the pips. To asses the effect of preceding sonar emission on temporal integration in the bat, Megaderma lyra, the detection thresholds of identical subjects were measured in a passive as well as in an active paradigm. In the passive paradigm, the presentation of the pip pairs was independent of the bats' sonar emissions; in the active paradigm, the presentation was triggered by the bats' sonar emissions. In both cases, the bats showed a very short integration time in the range of 100–200 µs. Moreover, the comparison of the active and passive results within each bat revealed no systematic differences in the two measuring paradigms. These results indicate that temporal integration is not influenced by echolocation. Simulations with a computer model of cochlear filtering based on measurements of M. lyra cochlear tuning suggest that the perceptual temporal integration is dominated by the integration of the cochlear filters.