Vignal Clémentine, Mathevon Nicolas
Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, ENES/CNPS, CNRS UM 8195, Universite de Saint-Etienne, France.
J Comp Psychol. 2011 May;125(2):150-61. doi: 10.1037/a0020865.
Besides their song, which is usually a functionally well-defined communication signal with an elaborate acoustic structure, songbirds also produce a variety of shorter vocalizations named calls. While a considerable amount of work has focused on information coding in songs, little is known about how calls' acoustic structure supports communication processes. Because male and female zebra finches use calls during most of their interactions and answer to conspecific calls without visual contact, we aimed at identifying which calls' acoustic cues are necessary to elicit a vocal response. Using synthetic zebra finch calls, we examined evoked vocal response of male and female zebra finches to modified versions of the distance calls. Our results show that the vocal response of zebra finches to female calls requires the full harmonic structure of the call, whereas the frequency downsweep of male calls is necessary to evoke a vocal response. It is likely that both female and male calls require matching a similar frequency bandwidth to trigger a response in conspecific individuals.
除了它们的歌声（通常是一种功能明确、具有精细声学结构的通讯信号）外，鸣禽还会发出各种较短的叫声。虽然大量研究集中在歌声中的信息编码，但对于叫声的声学结构如何支持通讯过程却知之甚少。由于雄性和雌性斑胸草雀在大多数互动中都会使用叫声，并且在没有视觉接触的情况下对同种叫声做出回应，我们旨在确定哪些叫声的声学线索对于引发声音反应是必要的。我们使用合成的斑胸草雀叫声，研究了雄性和雌性斑胸草雀对距离叫声的修改版本的诱发声音反应。我们的结果表明，斑胸草雀对雌性叫声的声音反应需要叫声完整的谐波结构，而雄性叫声的频率下扫对于引发声音反应是必要的。很可能雄性和雌性叫声都需要匹配相似的频率带宽才能触发同种个体的反应。
