TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of auditory distractors on song discrimination in male canaries (Serinus canaria)
AU - Appeltants, Didier
AU - Gentner, Timothy Q.
AU - Hulse, Stewart H.
AU - Balthazart, Jacques
AU - Ball, Gregory F.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the NINDS (NS 35467) to G.F.B. and J.B., and by grants from the Belgian FRFC (2.4555.01), the French Community of Belgium (ARC 99/04-241), and the University of Liège (Crédits spéciaux) to J.B. D.A. was research fellow with the FNRS.
PY - 2005/6/30
Y1 - 2005/6/30
N2 - Male songbirds such as canaries produce complex learned vocalizations that are used in the context of mate attraction and territory defense. Successful mate attraction or territorial defense requires that a bird be able to recognize individuals based on their vocal performance and identify these songs in a noisy background. In order to learn more about how birds are able to solve this problem, we investigated, with a two-alternative choice procedure, the ability of adult male canaries to discriminate between conspecific song segments from two different birds and to maintain this discrimination when conspecific songs are superimposed with a variety of distractors. The results indicate that male canaries have the ability to discriminate, with a high level of accuracy song segments produced by two different conspecific birds. Song discrimination was partially maintained when the stimuli were masked by auditory distractors, but the accuracy of the discrimination progressively declined as a function of the number of masking distractors. The type of distractor used in the experiments (other conspecific songs or different types of artificial white noise) did not markedly affect the rate of deterioration of the song discrimination. These data indicate that adult male canaries have the perceptual abilities to discriminate and selectively attend to one ongoing sound that occurs simultaneously with one or more other sounds. The administration of a noradrenergic neurotoxin did not impair markedly the discrimination learning abilities although the number of subjects tested was too small to allow any firm conclusion. In these conditions, however, the noradrenergic lesion significantly increased the number failures to respond in the discrimination learning task suggesting a role, in canaries, of the noradrenergic system in some attentional processes underlying song learning and processing.
AB - Male songbirds such as canaries produce complex learned vocalizations that are used in the context of mate attraction and territory defense. Successful mate attraction or territorial defense requires that a bird be able to recognize individuals based on their vocal performance and identify these songs in a noisy background. In order to learn more about how birds are able to solve this problem, we investigated, with a two-alternative choice procedure, the ability of adult male canaries to discriminate between conspecific song segments from two different birds and to maintain this discrimination when conspecific songs are superimposed with a variety of distractors. The results indicate that male canaries have the ability to discriminate, with a high level of accuracy song segments produced by two different conspecific birds. Song discrimination was partially maintained when the stimuli were masked by auditory distractors, but the accuracy of the discrimination progressively declined as a function of the number of masking distractors. The type of distractor used in the experiments (other conspecific songs or different types of artificial white noise) did not markedly affect the rate of deterioration of the song discrimination. These data indicate that adult male canaries have the perceptual abilities to discriminate and selectively attend to one ongoing sound that occurs simultaneously with one or more other sounds. The administration of a noradrenergic neurotoxin did not impair markedly the discrimination learning abilities although the number of subjects tested was too small to allow any firm conclusion. In these conditions, however, the noradrenergic lesion significantly increased the number failures to respond in the discrimination learning task suggesting a role, in canaries, of the noradrenergic system in some attentional processes underlying song learning and processing.
KW - Auditory scene analysis
KW - Canary
KW - Noradrenergic system
KW - Song discrimination
KW - Songbirds
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U2 - 10.1016/j.beproc.2005.01.010
DO - 10.1016/j.beproc.2005.01.010
M3 - Article
C2 - 15896531
AN - SCOPUS:19344371669
SN - 0376-6357
VL - 69
SP - 331
EP - 341
JO - Behavioural Processes
JF - Behavioural Processes
IS - 3
ER -