Assessing the Role of Vocal Plasticity in Sociospatial Coordination

Studies of vocal communication often focus on the messages that calls and songs convey related to reproductive activities, foraging, predator avoidance, social bonding, individual recognition, and conflict resolution. We consider ways in which vocalizations may dynamically mediate social interactions at a more basic level, through collective coordination of movements and the enhancement of spatial perception. From this perspective, animals may vocalize to probe the locations, movements, and intentions of others, to manipulate position changes by listeners, or to increase their own capacity to localize sounds. An animal's capacity to flexibly adjust vocalizations, both in real-time and over longer periods, can increase their ability to monitor and influence conspecifics independently of any information that may be encoded within those vocalizations. Beyond simply conveying messages, reproductive fitness, or emotional states, an animal's ability to modulate vocalizations may dynamically affect its future action plans and social roles within a group. Identifying situational, life-history, and sociospatial factors that determine how animals vocally interact in real-time is key to understanding how an animal's vocalizations relate to its own actions and the actions of others.