Stephens Jared, Accomando Alyssa W, Nease Kayla, Branstetter Brian K, Robeck Todd R
National Marine Mammal Foundation, San Diego, CA, United States.
Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, CA, United States.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2025 Jan 29;18:1495579. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1495579. eCollection 2024.
Perceived loudness is challenging to study in non-human animals. However, reaction time to an acoustic stimulus is a useful behavioral proxy for the assessment of perceived loudness. Understanding the effect of sound frequency and level on perceived loudness would improve prediction and modeling of anthropogenic noise impacts on marine mammals.
In this study, behavioral hearing tests conducted with two killer whales were analyzed to capture conditioned vocal response latency, which is the time between the onset of the acoustic signal and the onset of the response (i.e., reaction time).
The results showed that vocal reaction times decreased with increasing sensation level (i.e., sound pressure level above the baseline hearing threshold), while the effect of frequency on reaction time varied between the subjects. Reaction time as a function of sound duration is described, and equal-latency contours are presented.
The data suggest that vocal reaction time decreases with increasing sensation level, therefore supporting the use of reaction time as a proxy for loudness perception in killer whales.
在非人类动物中研究可感知响度具有挑战性。然而，对声学刺激的反应时间是评估可感知响度的一种有用行为指标。了解声音频率和强度对可感知响度的影响将改善对人为噪声对海洋哺乳动物影响的预测和建模。
在本研究中，对两只虎鲸进行的行为听力测试进行了分析，以获取条件性发声反应潜伏期，即声学信号开始与反应开始之间的时间（即反应时间）。
结果表明，发声反应时间随感觉水平（即高于基线听力阈值的声压级）的增加而减少，而频率对反应时间的影响在不同个体之间有所不同。描述了反应时间作为声音持续时间的函数，并给出了等潜伏期轮廓。
数据表明，发声反应时间随感觉水平的增加而减少，因此支持将反应时间用作虎鲸响度感知的指标。
