title: Spatial unmasking of birdsong in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus).
abstract: Budgerigars and zebra finches were tested, using operant conditioning techniques, on their ability to identify a zebra finch song in the presence of a background masker emitted from either the same or a different location as the signal. Identification thresholds were obtained for three masker types differing in their spectrotemporal characteristics (noise, modulated noise, and a song chorus). Both bird species exhibited similar amounts of spatial unmasking across the three masker types. The amount of unmasking was greater when the masker was played continuously compared to when the target and masker were presented simultaneously. These results suggest that spatial factors are important for birds in the identification of natural signals in noisy environments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. mdent@buffalo.edu
authors.forename: Micheal L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Dent
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: McClaine
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Best
authors.forename: Erol
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ozmeral
authors.forename: Rajiv
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Narayan
authors.forename: Frederick J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Gallun
authors.forename: Kamal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sen
authors.forename: Barbara G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Shinn-Cunningham
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D005260:Female; D046369:Finches; D008297:Male; D046408:Melopsittacus; D009949:Orientation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D013017:Sound Localization; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013045:Species Specificity; D014828:Vocalization, Animal