Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises
Visually dominant animals use gaze adjustments to organize perceptual inputs for cognitive processing. Thereby they manage the massive sensory load from complex and noisy scenes. Echolocation, as an active sensory system, may provide more opportunities to control such information flow by adjusting t...
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fthighwire:oai:open-archive.highwire.org:jexbio:215/24/4358 2023-05-15T18:33:25+02:00 Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises Wisniewska, Danuta Maria Johnson, Mark Beedholm, Kristian Wahlberg, Magnus Madsen, Peter Teglberg 2012-12-15 00:00:00.0 text/html http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/215/24/4358 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 en eng Company of Biologists http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/215/24/4358 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 Copyright (C) 2012, Company of Biologists Research Articles TEXT 2012 fthighwire https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 2013-05-26T19:10:03Z Visually dominant animals use gaze adjustments to organize perceptual inputs for cognitive processing. Thereby they manage the massive sensory load from complex and noisy scenes. Echolocation, as an active sensory system, may provide more opportunities to control such information flow by adjusting the properties of the sound source. However, most studies of toothed whale echolocation have involved stationed animals in static auditory scenes for which dynamic information control is unnecessary. To mimic conditions in the wild, we designed an experiment with captive, free-swimming harbor porpoises tasked with discriminating between two hydrophone-equipped targets and closing in on the selected target; this allowed us to gain insight into how porpoises adjust their acoustic gaze in a multi-target dynamic scene. By means of synchronized cameras, an acoustic tag and on-target hydrophone recordings we demonstrate that porpoises employ both beam direction control and range-dependent changes in output levels and pulse intervals to accommodate their changing spatial relationship with objects of immediate interest. We further show that, when switching attention to another target, porpoises can set their depth of gaze accurately for the new target location. In combination, these observations imply that porpoises exert precise vocal-motor control that is tied to spatial perception akin to visual accommodation. Finally, we demonstrate that at short target ranges porpoises narrow their depth of gaze dramatically by adjusting their output so as to focus on a single target. This suggests that echolocating porpoises switch from a deliberative mode of sensorimotor operation to a reactive mode when they are close to a target. Text toothed whale HighWire Press (Stanford University) Journal of Experimental Biology 215 24 4358 4373 |
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Research Articles Wisniewska, Danuta Maria Johnson, Mark Beedholm, Kristian Wahlberg, Magnus Madsen, Peter Teglberg Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
topic_facet |
Research Articles |
description |
Visually dominant animals use gaze adjustments to organize perceptual inputs for cognitive processing. Thereby they manage the massive sensory load from complex and noisy scenes. Echolocation, as an active sensory system, may provide more opportunities to control such information flow by adjusting the properties of the sound source. However, most studies of toothed whale echolocation have involved stationed animals in static auditory scenes for which dynamic information control is unnecessary. To mimic conditions in the wild, we designed an experiment with captive, free-swimming harbor porpoises tasked with discriminating between two hydrophone-equipped targets and closing in on the selected target; this allowed us to gain insight into how porpoises adjust their acoustic gaze in a multi-target dynamic scene. By means of synchronized cameras, an acoustic tag and on-target hydrophone recordings we demonstrate that porpoises employ both beam direction control and range-dependent changes in output levels and pulse intervals to accommodate their changing spatial relationship with objects of immediate interest. We further show that, when switching attention to another target, porpoises can set their depth of gaze accurately for the new target location. In combination, these observations imply that porpoises exert precise vocal-motor control that is tied to spatial perception akin to visual accommodation. Finally, we demonstrate that at short target ranges porpoises narrow their depth of gaze dramatically by adjusting their output so as to focus on a single target. This suggests that echolocating porpoises switch from a deliberative mode of sensorimotor operation to a reactive mode when they are close to a target. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wisniewska, Danuta Maria Johnson, Mark Beedholm, Kristian Wahlberg, Magnus Madsen, Peter Teglberg |
author_facet |
Wisniewska, Danuta Maria Johnson, Mark Beedholm, Kristian Wahlberg, Magnus Madsen, Peter Teglberg |
author_sort |
Wisniewska, Danuta Maria |
title |
Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
title_short |
Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
title_full |
Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
title_fullStr |
Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
title_full_unstemmed |
Acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
title_sort |
acoustic gaze adjustments during active target selection in echolocating porpoises |
publisher |
Company of Biologists |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/215/24/4358 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 |
genre |
toothed whale |
genre_facet |
toothed whale |
op_relation |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/215/24/4358 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 |
op_rights |
Copyright (C) 2012, Company of Biologists |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.074013 |
container_title |
Journal of Experimental Biology |
container_volume |
215 |
container_issue |
24 |
container_start_page |
4358 |
op_container_end_page |
4373 |
_version_ |
1766218030141931520 |