Presenter

D. Patel, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta

Abstract

Discriminating between individuals is a time-consuming process that is usually best avoided. However, it is useful to recognize between and within species as it can decrease the time and energy wasted during social interactions. Prior research shows that black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) can potentially discriminate between male- and female-produced tseet calls, male- and female-produced chick-a-dee calls, and male fee-bee songs. In our study, an operant go/no-go conditioning paradigm was used to test if male and female black-capped chickadees can discriminate between individual females via their fee-bee songs. Additionally, we tested what acoustic feature(s) of the song allows chickadees to discriminate between individual females. The chickadees who were trained in the True group (reinforced for responding to specific individual female’s fee-bee songs and withhold responding to other female song) learned to respond faster to the trained stimuli compared to the Pseudo group (reinforced for responding to randomized females fee-bee songs). Our results show that chickadees were able to generalize their learning from training by applying learning to untrained fee-bee songs produced by their previously reinforced individual females. Additionally, chickadees trained on individual female’s fee-bee songs generalized their response when presented with the fee note of the same trained individual female, but did not show this with the bee note of the same trained individual female. Results suggest that male and female black-capped chickadees can differentiate between individual females based on their fee-bee song; however, the acoustic features that aid with individual recognition are unknown and require further study.

Poster

Authors & Affiliations

D. Patel, C. Montenegro, W. D. Service, E. N. Scully, S. K. Mischler, K. A. Campbell D. D. Patel, C. Montenegro, W. D. Service, E. N. Scully, S. K. Mischler, K. A. Campbell (Department of Psychology, University of Alberta), & C. B. Sturdy (Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta)