Summary
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1.
Two male great tits (Parus major) were trained to distinguish between sounds from two locations in an operant two alternative, forced choice procedure with positive reinforcement.
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2.
The angle between the two sound sources, as experienced from the position of the experimental subject, was varied. The angle at which the birds scored 65% correct responses in 60 choices (which corresponds toP = 0.03, two-tailed, binomial test) was defined as the minimum resolvable angle (MRA).
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3.
The resolution in azimuth for four natural vocalizations, the ‘seeet’ alarm call, the ‘scolding’ call, the mobbing call, and a song element, was 45°, 16°, 20°, and 18°, respectively (Fig. 2). The MRAs correlated well with the results from artificial stimuli with a comparable frequency.
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4.
MRAs for 300 ms sine wave stimuli were determined from 500 Hz to 8 kHz: The u-shaped function relating MRA with frequency had a minimum at 2 kHz, with a best MRA of 20°. At 500 Hz and 8 kHz the MRAs were 66.5° and 52°, respectively. MRA of a 300 ms white noise stimulus was 20.5° (Fig. 3).
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5.
The duration of the stimulus had no effect on the resolution in azimuth for a range of durations from 40 ms to 300 ms (Table 1). This suggests that the great tit may locate a sound source in an open loop fashion.
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Abbreviations
- MRA :
-
minimum resolvable angle
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Klump, G.M., Windt, W. & Curio, E. The great tit's (Parus major) auditory resolution in azimuth. J. Comp. Physiol. 158, 383–390 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00603622
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00603622