DISCRIMINATION OF NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC CALL VARIANTS

描述(摘自申请者的摘要)：这项研究将审查 两只鹦鹉对自然和人工交流叫声的感知 物种。范畴知觉被认为是连续发生的 不同的刺激被感知地分类为离散的组，并且 是提高了跨越分类界限的变种的辨别能力。在……里面 这个项目，三个单独的实验将测试是否 黄颈亚马逊或虎皮鹦鹉有明确的认知 黄颈亚马逊发声，如果是这样的话，这两个物种是否都能感觉到 同一组呼叫中的相似类别。第一个实验将测试 黄颈亚马逊的基本听觉敏感度及其比较 到虎皮鹦鹉和其他鸟类的现有听力图。这个 第二个实验将比较这两个物种的能力 区分黄颈亚马逊自然叫声的新变种 并测试这两个物种是否有对应于 先前定义的声学类别。第三个实验将比较 这两个物种辨别等距的能力 合成变种及其对尖端边界存在性的检验 分类知觉特征的变体之间的辨别能力。 总而言之，这些实验将开始解决两个一般性问题： 首先，自然叫声是否以绝对的方式被 第二，这些类别是否因物种而异 (仅限于一个物种自己的叫声)或一般的(两者都有 同种和异种叫声)。拟议的项目将提供 有价值的信号合成、声学分析方法培训，以及 心理声学测试。它还将有助于发展一种 具有很大潜力的模型系统，用于听觉和听觉的研究 声乐学习。

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): This study will examine the perception of natural and synthetic communication calls by two parrot species. Categorical perception is considered to occur when continuously varying stimuli are perceptually classified into a discrete group and there is increased discriminability of variants across categorical boundaries. In this project, three separate experiments will test whether either the yellow-nape amazon or the budgerigar 1) has categorical perception of yellow-nape amazon vocalizations, and if so 2) whether both species perceive similar categories in the same set of calls. The first experiment will test the basic auditory sensitivities of the yellow-nape amazon and compare them to available audiograms for the budgerigar and other bird species. The second experiment will compare the abilities of the two species to discriminate among novel variants of natural calls of the yellow-nape amazon and test whether either species has perceptual categories that correspond to previously defined acoustic categories. The third experiment will compare the abilities of the two species to discriminate between equally spaced synthetic variants and test for the existence of the sharp boundaries in discriminability between variants characteristic of categorical perception. In sum, these experiments will begin to address two general questions: first, whether natural calls are perceived in a categorical fashion by animals and, second, whether these categories are species-specific (restricted to a species own calls) or are general (found for both conspecific and heterospecific calls). The proposed project will provide valuable training in methods for signal synthesis, acoustic analysis, and psychoacoustical testing. It will also contribute to the development of a model system with great potential for the study of auditory perception and vocal learning.