Echolocating bats accumulate information from acoustic snapshots to predict auditory object motion

Area of Science:

• Bioacoustics
• Animal Behavior
• Sensory Ecology

Background:

• Bats, unlike visually-oriented predators, rely on echolocation for hunting.
• Tracking erratic prey with intermittent acoustic data presents a significant challenge for bats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if echolocating bats utilize internal prediction models for tracking moving auditory targets.
• To understand how bats process acoustic information to anticipate prey location.

Main Methods:

• Developed an ethologically inspired behavioral paradigm to study bat tracking.
• Quantified head/sonar beam aim and echolocation call rate during target tracking.
• Applied mathematical models to distinguish predictive from non-predictive tracking.

Main Results:

• Big brown bats accumulate information across echo sequences to predict target positions.
• Bats maintain tracking using internal motion models even when targets are acoustically occluded.
• Echolocation call rate increases when target trajectory predictions are violated, indicating rapid model updating.

Conclusions:

• Echolocating bats integrate acoustic snapshots over time to build predictive models of target trajectories.
• These internal models enable bats to track evasive prey under conditions of sensory uncertainty.
• Bats dynamically adapt their sonar behavior to update predictions, crucial for successful prey interception.