Spontaneous rhythms in a harbor seal pup calls
Objectives: Timing and rhythm (i.e. temporal structure) are crucial, though historically neglected, dimensions of animal communication. When investigating these in non-human animals, it is often difficult to balance experimental control and ecological validity. Here I present the first step of an at...
| Published in: | BMC Research Notes |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0000-63E6-D http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0000-63E8-B http://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0001-A930-A |
| Summary: | Objectives: Timing and rhythm (i.e. temporal structure) are crucial, though historically neglected, dimensions of animal communication. When investigating these in non-human animals, it is often difficult to balance experimental control and ecological validity. Here I present the first step of an attempt to balance the two, focusing on the timing of vocal rhythms in a harbor seal pup (Phoca vitulina). Collection of this data had a clear aim: To find spontaneous vocal rhythms in this individual in order to design individually-adapted and ecologically-relevant stimuli for a later playback experiment. Data description: The calls of one seal pup were recorded. The audio recordings were annotated using Praat, a free software to analyze vocalizations in humans and other animals. The annotated onsets and offsets of vocalizations were then imported in a Python script. The script extracted three types of timing information: the duration of calls, the intervals between calls’ onsets, and the intervals between calls’ maximum-intensity peaks. Based on the annotated data, available to download, I provide simple descriptive statistics for these temporal measures, and compare their distributions. |
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