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Tracking silence: adjusting vocal production to avoid acoustic interference.

S E Roian Egnor¹, Jeanette Graham Wickelgren, Marc D Hauser

¹Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. egnor@fas.harvard.edu

Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology

|January 24, 2007

Summary

Cotton-top tamarins can adjust their vocalizations to avoid noisy environments. These New World monkeys modify call timing, loudness, and duration to communicate effectively amidst predictable, intermittent sound interference.

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Area of Science:

Animal communication
Bioacoustics
Primate behavior

Background:

Vocal organisms modulate calls to avoid masking by environmental noise.
Intermittent noise can be avoided by timing vocalizations with silent periods.
This anti-masking ability is known in many species but poorly understood in nonhuman primates.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the capacity of nonhuman primates to avoid acoustic interference from intermittent noise.
To determine if cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) can modify vocalizations in response to predictable, patterned noise.

Main Methods:

Exposing cotton-top tamarins to loud, periodic white noise.
Analyzing vocalizations for changes in timing, amplitude, and duration compared to baseline conditions.
Quantifying call adjustments during silent intervals within the noise pattern.

Main Results:

Cotton-top tamarins successfully restricted calls to silent intervals in the noise.
Calls produced during silent intervals were significantly louder than baseline calls.
Average call duration decreased with experience, indicating call compression.

Conclusions:

Cotton-top tamarins demonstrate a sophisticated ability to avoid acoustic interference.
Primates can actively modify vocalization timing, amplitude, and duration in response to predictable environmental noise.
This study reveals a fundamental anti-masking communication strategy in New World monkeys.