vocal Recognition
Mother-pup
Both females and pups have unique voices to allow them to identify each other on a noisy seal colony.
Features that are important in separating mothers voices are the fundamental frequency, duration and minimum frequency. While in pups the features important in distinguishing between callers is the fundamental frequency, number of parts per call, duration, quavering and peak frequency changes at the start, mid-point and end of the call (i.e., along PEAK F1) |
neighbour-stranger
Males respond differently to the calls of its neighbours whose territory boundary lines have been established by weeks of confrontations, from the voices of unknown males that are potentially a threat to his territory.
Our research highlights the importance of repetition and the calls' spectral properties to detect a caller. |