title: Auditory Discrimination of Natural and High-Pass Filtered Bark Vocalizations in a California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus).
abstract: A California sea lion performed a psychophysical auditory discrimination task with a set of six stimuli: three barks recorded from conspecific males and high-pass filtered versions of the barks that removed the majority of energy at fundamental frequencies. Discrimination performance and subject reaction times (RTs) suggested that the vocalizations were all perceived as fairly dissimilar. This preliminary study hints that low-frequency components are a salient part of the California sea lion bark despite elevation of this species' aerial hearing thresholds and the potential for elevated environmental noise levels at frequencies below 1 kHz.
authors.affiliation: National Marine Mammal Foundation, 2240 Shelter Island Drive, Suite 200, San Diego, CA, 92106, USA. jason.mulsow@nmmf.org.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mulsow
authors.affiliation: US Navy Marine Mammal Program, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SSC) Pacific, San Diego, CA, 92152, USA. james.finneran@navy.mil.
authors.forename: James J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Finneran
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D046070:Sea Lions / Q000502:physiology*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Hearing; Pinniped