Female perception of size-related formant shifts in red deer, Cervus elaphus
Female perception of size-related formant shifts in red deer, Cervus elaphus
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DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.09.021
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发表时间：
2007-10-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
McComb, Karen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Charlton, Benjamin D.;Reby, David;McComb, Karen
关于特定的声音提示在哺乳动物语音交流系统中的作用，人们知之甚少。在目前的研究中，我们使用习惯化-辨别范式中重新合成的雄性马鹿的咆哮来确定雌性马鹿是否对共振峰频率的变化敏感，这些共振峰频率对应于小马鹿和大马鹿雄性声道长度之间的自然变化。习惯于一种特定大小变化的Hinds在面对咆哮时表现出明显的去适应，在咆哮中，共振峰被修改为模拟另一种大小变化。对最终重新生活回放的行为反应的显著减少表明，这不是反应水平的偶然反弹。我们的结果表明，共振峰对马鹿海因斯来说是显著的，海因斯可以检测到共振峰频率的变化，这可能具有生物学意义。我们讨论了共振峰知觉在雌性马鹿和更广泛的非人类哺乳动物中的可能功能。
Little is known about the role of specific acoustic cues in mammal vocal communication systems. In the current study, we used resynthesized male red deer roars in a habituation-discrimination paradigm to determine whether female red deer are sensitive to shifts in formant frequencies corresponding to the natural variation between the vocal tract lengths of a small and large adult red deer male. Hinds habituated to a given size variant showed a significant dishabituation when they were presented with roars in which the formants had been modified to simulate the other size variant. The signficant reduction in behavioural response to final rehabituation playback showed this was not a chance rebound in response levels. Our results suggest that formants are salient for red deer hinds and that hinds can detect a shift in formant frequencies that may have biological significance. We discuss the possible functions of formant perception in female red deer and more generally in nonhuman mammals.