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The harmonic-to-noise ratio applied to dog barks.

T Riede1, H Herzel, K Hammerschmidt

  • 1Institut für Biologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. tobiasriede@web.de

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
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The harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) effectively quantifies noise in dog barks, distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy dogs. This bioacoustic measure aligns with human perception and offers a novel way to analyze vocalizations.

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Area of Science:

  • Bioacoustics
  • Animal Communication
  • Veterinary Medicine

Background:

  • Dog barks contain both regular (harmonic) and irregular (noisy) components.
  • Noise in barks may arise from vocal fold vibration or air turbulence.
  • The harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) quantifies the balance between harmonic and nonharmonic energy in sound signals.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the utility of the harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) for analyzing dog barks.
  • To determine if HNR can differentiate between barks from healthy and unhealthy dogs.
  • To assess the consistency of HNR measurements with perceptual evaluations.

Main Methods:

  • Recorded barks from healthy and unhealthy dogs over six months.
  • Calculated HNR using the Fourier spectrum of 50-ms bark sections.
  • Defined HNR as the maximum difference between the bark's spectrum and a smoothed noise estimate.

Main Results:

  • HNR measurements allowed for a reasonable ranking of dog voices.
  • HNR-based classification of barks correlated well with perceptual evaluations.
  • A multiparametric approach confirmed the HNR classification results.

Conclusions:

  • The harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) is a potentially valuable tool in bioacoustics for quantifying signal noise.
  • HNR may serve as a novel parameter for analyzing vocalizations in animals.
  • The study demonstrates HNR's effectiveness in differentiating bark characteristics potentially related to a dog's health or emotional state.