How Greater Mouse-eared Bats Deal with Ambiguous Echoic Scenes

Overview

Journal J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol

Publisher Springer

Specialties Neurology
Social Sciences

Date 2010 Jul 24

PMID 20652706

Citations 7

Authors

M L Melcon

Y Yovel

A Denzinger

H-U Schnitzler

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Echolocating bats have to assign the received echoes to the correct call that generated them. Failing to do so will result in the perception of virtual targets that are positioned where there is no actual target. The assignment of echoes to the emitted calls can be ambiguous especially if the pulse intervals between calls are short and kept constant. Here, we present first evidence that greater mouse-eared bats deal with ambiguity by changing the pulse interval more often, in particular by reducing the number of calls in the terminal group before landing. This strategy separates virtual targets from real ones according to their change in position. Real targets will always remain in a constant position, and virtual targets will jitter back and forth according to the change in the time interval.

Citing Articles

Spatiotemporal patterning of acoustic gaze in echolocating bats navigating gaps in clutter.

Tuninetti A, Ming C, Hom K, Simmons J, Simmons A iScience. 2021; 24(4):102353.

PMID: 33870143 PMC: 8047172. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102353.

How frequency hopping suppresses pulse-echo ambiguity in bat biosonar.

Ming C, Bates M, Simmons J Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020; 117(29):17288-17295.

PMID: 32632013 PMC: 7382275. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2001105117.

Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) reveal diverse strategies for sonar target tracking in clutter.

Mao B, Aytekin M, Wilkinson G, Moss C J Acoust Soc Am. 2016; 140(3):1839.

PMID: 27914429 PMC: 6909987. DOI: 10.1121/1.4962496.

Echolocating Big Brown Bats, Eptesicus fuscus, Modulate Pulse Intervals to Overcome Range Ambiguity in Cluttered Surroundings.

Wheeler A, Fulton K, Gaudette J, Simmons R, Matsuo I, Simmons J Front Behav Neurosci. 2016; 10:125.

PMID: 27445723 PMC: 4916216. DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00125.

It's not black or white-on the range of vision and echolocation in echolocating bats.

Boonman A, Bar-On Y, Cvikel N, Yovel Y Front Physiol. 2013; 4:248.

PMID: 24065924 PMC: 3769648. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2013.00248.

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