Common Biases in Sound Localization in Insects and Anurans When Directional Cues Conflict

15 Aug 2016

  Dr Michael Reichert attended the 2016 meeting of the Animal Behaviour Society in Missouri, USA and gave a presentation on “Common Biases in Sound Localization in Insects and Anurans When Directional Cues Conflict”    

"For effective acoustic communication, the location of origin of a sound must be determined. However, in natural environments this can be challenging because interference can sometimes result in conflicting cues for the direction of a sound’s location. How do animals integrate this conflicting information to decide from which direction a sound was coming from. In this presentation I discussed a series of experiments and computer models that address this question for acoustic signalling in the context of mate choice in grasshoppers and frogs. I found surprising similarities between the two groups in their biases towards time cues of a sound’s location. This was corroborated by a neural model of sound integration, which fit the behavioural data well."