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

ABSTRACT: Unlike other predators that use vision as their primary sensory system, bats compute the three-dimensional (3D) position of flying insects from discrete echo snapshots, which raises questions about the strategies they employ to track and intercept erratically moving prey from interrupted sensory information. Here, we devised an ethologically inspired behavioral paradigm to directly test the hypothesis that echolocating bats build internal prediction models from dynamic acoustic stimuli to anticipate the future location of moving auditory targets. We quantified the direction of the bat's head/sonar beam aim and echolocation call rate as it tracked a target that moved across its sonar field and applied mathematical models to differentiate between nonpredictive and predictive tracking behavio

SUBMITTER: Salles A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7682551 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature