Abstract
Auditory streaming underlies a receiver’s ability to organize complex mixtures of auditory input into distinct perceptual “streams” that represent different sound sources in the environment. During auditory streaming, sounds produced by the same source are integrated through time into a single, coherent auditory stream that is perceptually segregated from other concurrent sounds. Based on human psychoacoustic studies, one hypothesis regarding auditory streaming is that any sufficiently salient perceptual difference may lead to stream segregation. Here, we used the eastern grey treefrog, Hyla versicolor, to test this hypothesis in the context of vocal communication in a non-human animal. In this system, females choose their mate based on perceiving species-specific features of a male’s pulsatile advertisement calls in social environments (choruses) characterized by mixtures of overlapping vocalizations. We employed an experimental paradigm from human psychoacoustics to design interleaved pulsatile sequences (ABAB…) that mimicked key features of the species’ advertisement call, and in which alternating pulses differed in pulse rise time, which is a robust species recognition cue in eastern grey treefrogs. Using phonotaxis assays, we found no evidence that perceptually salient differences in pulse rise time promoted the segregation of interleaved pulse sequences into distinct auditory streams. These results do not support the hypothesis that any perceptually salient acoustic difference can be exploited as a cue for stream segregation in all species. We discuss these findings in the context of cues used for species recognition and auditory streaming.
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Data availability
The experimental data collected and analyzed for this study are available in the Digital Repository of the University of Minnesota (https://doi.org/10.13020/jw2s-pn84).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Saumya Gupta, Katie Krueger, Sophie Barno, Kaitlyn Bonnema, Sarah Bonnema, Olivia Groth, Rishi Gulati, Collin Meyer and Annika Ruppert for their help collecting and testing frogs, and Mike Goodnature from Ramsey County Parks and Recreation for generous access to collection sites. We are also grateful to Marlene Zuk, Andrew Oxenham, Katie Krueger, Satyabhama de Oliveira, Andrea Simmons, and two anonymous referees for feedback on this manuscript.
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This research was funded in part by grants to MAB from the National Science Foundation (IOS-1452831 and IOS-2022253) and by grants and fellowships to LK from the University of Minnesota Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, the Bell Museum of Natural History, the University of Minnesota Graduate School and the Animal Behavior Society.
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LK and MAB: designed the study. LK and SA: conducted experiments. LK and SA: analyzed data. LK, SA and MAB: prepared the manuscript.
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Kalra, L., Altman, S. & Bee, M.A. Perceptually salient differences in a species recognition cue do not promote auditory streaming in eastern grey treefrogs (Hyla versicolor). J Comp Physiol A (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-024-01702-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-024-01702-9