Acoustical cues for perception of emotional vocalizations in rats.

ABSTRACT: The ultrasonic vocalizations of rats can transmit affective states to listeners. For example, rats typically produce shorter calls in a higher frequency range in social situations (pleasant call: PC), whereas they emit longer calls with lower frequency in distress situations (distress call: DC). Knowing what acoustical features contribute to auditory discrimination between these two calls will help to better characterize auditory perception of vocalized sounds in rats. In turn, this could lead to better estimation of models for processing vocalizations in sensory systems in general. Here, using an operant discrimination procedure, we examined the impact of various acoustical features on discriminating emotional ultrasonic vocalizations. We did this by systematically swapping three features

SUBMITTER: Saito Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6646302 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature