Acoustic basis for recognition of aspect-dependent three-dimensional targets by an echolocating bottlenose dolphin

The relationships between acoustic features of target echoes and the cognitive representations of the target formed by an echolocating dolphin will influence the ease with which the dolphin can recognize a target. A blindfolded Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) learned to match aspect-dependent three-dimensional targets (such as a cube) at haphazard orientations, although with some difficulty. This task may have been difficult because aspect-dependent targets produce different echoes at different orientations, which required the dolphin to have some capability for object constancy across changes in echo characteristics. Significant target-related differences in echo amplitude, rms bandwidth, and distributions of interhighlight intervals were observed among echoes collected when the dolphin was performing the task. Targets could be classified using a combination of energy flux density and rms bandwidth by a linear discriminant analysis and a nearest centroid classifier. Neither statistical model could classify targets without amplitude information, but the highest accuracy required spectral information as well. This suggests that the dolphin recognized the targets using a multidimensional representation containing amplitude and spectral information and that dolphins can form stable representations of targets regardless of orientation based on varying sensory properties.