Presenter

Carolina Montenegro, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta

Abstract

Anthropogenic noise can mask acoustic signals that animals produce, thus jeopardizing discrimination. However, limited research has focused on how anthropogenic noise affects the identification of acoustic communication signals. When anthropogenic noise occurs simultaneously with an acoustic signal or cue it can be difficult for an animal to interpret the information encoded within vocalizations. Research has also shown that black-capped chickadees will shift the pitch at which they sing in the presence of anthropogenic, or human-produced, noise. And black-capped chickadees change the frequency of their fee-bee songs in response to anthropogenic noise and experimental noise. Black-capped chickadees produce several vocalizations including the fee-bee song which is used for mate attraction and territorial defense, and contains information about dominance hierarchy and native geographic location. Previously, we have demonstrated that black-capped chickadees can discriminate between individual female chickadees via their fee-bee songs. The current study used an operant discrimination go/no go paradigm to discern whether the ability to discriminate between individual females chickadees by song would be impacted by differing levels of anthropogenic noise. Following discrimination training, two levels of anthropogenic noise (low: 35-40 dB; high: 70-75 dB) were played with stimuli to determine how anthropogenic noise would impact discrimination. Our results suggest that discrimination performance declined as the noise levels increased. These results add to the growing literature underscoring the impact of human-made noise on avian wildlife, specifically the impact on perception of auditory signals.

Poster

Authors & Affiliations

Carolina Montenegro, William Service Psychology Department, University of Alberta), Erin Scully, Shannon Mischler, Thomas Benowicz, Katelyn Fox, Prateek Sahu, Kimberley Campbell, Christopher Sturdy (Psychology Department, University of Alberta)