Auditory scene analysis by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris): perceptual segregation of tone sequences

Like humans, animals that use acoustic stimuli to perceive their world ought to be able to parse the auditory scene into functionally significant sounds. The ability to do so ought to have significant adaptive value when, for example, an animal can identify the sounds of a predator among other natural noises. In earlier work it was shown that a species of songbird, the European starling, can identify excerpts of both its own song and songs from other avian species when the songs are mixed concurrently with other natural signals. In this experiment it is demonstrated that starlings can segregate two synthetic pure-tone sequences when the sequences differ in frequency. Taken together, the experiments show that at least one nonhuman species is capable of auditory scene analysis both for natural and for non-natural acoustic stimuli. This suggests in turn that auditory scene analysis may be a general perceptual process that occurs in many species that make use of acoustic information.