Shift of song frequencies in response to masking tones

Goodwin, Sarah E.; Podos, Jeffrey

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.12.003

Cited by 47 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…House finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) have been shown to shift the frequency of their song notes within the time it takes them to sing three songs to avoid masking by high-amplitude noise playbacks (Bermúdez-Cuamatzin et al, 2010), while black-capped chickadees (Poecile attricapillus) increase the frequency of their song notes on average after more than 1 min to avoid spectral overlap with lower frequency masking tones played back to them (Goodwin and Podos, 2013). In contrast, the onset of singing .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lombard effect onset times reveal the speed of vocal plasticity in a songbird

Hardman

Zollinger

Koselj

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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There was an error published in J. Exp. Biol. 220, 1065-1071.Eqn 2 was displayed incorrectly. The correct equation appears below.We apologise to the authors and readers for any inconvenience this may have caused. ABSTRACTAnimals that use vocal signals to communicate often compensate for interference and masking from background noise by raising the amplitude of their vocalisations. This response has been termed the Lombard effect. However, despite more than a century of research, little is known how quickly animals can adjust the amplitude of their vocalisations after the onset of noise. The ability to respond quickly to increases in noise levels would allow animals to avoid signal masking and ensure their calls continue to be heard, even if they are interrupted by sudden bursts of high-amplitude noise. We tested how quickly singing male canaries (Serinus canaria) exhibit the Lombard effect by exposing them to short playbacks of white noise and measuring the speed of their responses. We show that canaries exhibit the Lombard effect in as little as 300 ms after the onset of noise and are also able to increase the amplitude of their songs midsong and mid-phrase without pausing. Our results demonstrate high vocal plasticity in this species and suggest that birds are able to adjust the amplitude of their vocalisations very rapidly to ensure they can still be heard even during sudden changes in background noise levels.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lombard effect onset times reveal the speed of vocal plasticity in a songbird

Hardman

Zollinger

Koselj

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Transmission experiments show that urban noise overlaps black-capped chickadee songs and has the potential to significantly reduce signal-to-noise ratios [29]. Further, observational and experimental exposure studies show that black-capped chickadees exhibit spectral plasticity in response to anthropogenic noise [30,31] and spectrally shift their songs away from narrow bands of overlapping noise [32]. However, we do not know whether this ability to avoid masking needs to be learned or whether the tendency to shift upwards in response to lowfrequency noise is dependent upon prior experience with signalling under noisy conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to cope: vocal adjustment to urban noise is correlated with prior experience in black-capped chickadees

2016

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Urban noise can interfere with avian communication through masking, but birds can reduce this interference by altering their vocalizations. Although several experimental studies indicate that birds can rapidly change their vocalizations in response to sudden increases in ambient noise, none have investigated whether this is a learned response that depends on previous exposure. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) change the frequency of their songs in response to both fluctuating traffic noise and experimental noise. We investigated whether these responses to fluctuating noise depend on familiarity with noise. We confirmed that males in noisy areas sang higher-frequency songs than those in quiet areas, but found that only males in already-noisy territories shifted songs upwards in immediate response to experimental noise. Unexpectedly, males in more quiet territories shifted songs downwards in response to experimental noise. These results suggest that chickadees may require prior experience with fluctuating noise to adjust vocalizations in such a way as to minimize masking. Thus, learning to cope may be an important part of adjusting to acoustic life in the city.

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“…Animals use this capacity in situations such as changing social contexts (Janik 2000, Brumm and Slater 2006a, Gavassa et al 2013 or coping with challenging conditions for signal detection in fluctuating environments (Lengagne et al 1999, Ord et al 2007, Goodwin and Podos 2013. Indeed, there is growing evidence that signal detection constraints are one of the major forces driving the evolution of animal communication systems across different taxa , Wiley 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocal plasticity in mallards: multiple signal changes in noise and the evolution of the Lombard effect in birds

Dorado-Correa

Zollinger

Brumm

2017

Journal of Avian Biology

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Signal plasticity is a building block of complex animal communication systems. A particular form of signal plasticity is the Lombard effect, in which a signaler increases its vocal amplitude in response to an increase in the background noise. The Lombard effect is a basic mechanism for communication in noise that is well-studied in human speech and which has also been reported in other mammals and several bird species. Sometimes, but not always, the Lombard effect is accompanied by additional changes in signal parameters. However, the evolution of the Lombard effect and related vocal adjustments in birds are still unclear because so far only three major avian clades have been studied. We report the first evidence for the Lombard effect in an anseriform bird, the mallard Anas platyrhynchos. In association with the Lombard effect, the fifteen ducklings in our experiment also increased the peak frequency of their calls in noise. However, they did not change the duration of call syllables or their call rates as has been found in other bird species. Our findings support the notion that all extant birds use the Lombard effect to solve the common problem of maintaining communication in noise, i.e. it is an ancestral trait shared among all living avian taxa, which means that it has evolved more than 70 million yr ago. At the same time, our data suggest that parameter changes associated with the Lombard effect follow more complex patterns, with marked differences between taxa, some of which might be related to proximate constraints.

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Shift of song frequencies in response to masking tones

Cited by 47 publications

References 47 publications

Lombard effect onset times reveal the speed of vocal plasticity in a songbird

Lombard effect onset times reveal the speed of vocal plasticity in a songbird

Learning to cope: vocal adjustment to urban noise is correlated with prior experience in black-capped chickadees

Vocal plasticity in mallards: multiple signal changes in noise and the evolution of the Lombard effect in birds

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