Seminars in Hearing Research at Purdue (SHRP)

Date: Thursday, September 8, 2022

Time: 10:30 – 11:20 am

Location: LYLE 1150

Title: A tale of two stories: hearing, song and culture

Speaker: Jeff Lucas, Professor in Biological Sciences 

Abstract: I am going to update information about 2 systems I’ve talked about before, and show that the techniques from one and updated data set from the other lead to a new third, potentially exciting study system.  The first study is about individual variation in signal processing in 4 species of birds.  The question is whether auditory processing of song (i.e. sexually selected signals) is more variable than auditory processing of non-song elements.  The answer is ‘no’.  But surprisingly, individual variation is higher in some species than in others – and the species-level variation in processing is largest in a species with the most complex songs.  Hmm…  We evaluated this auditory processing using cross-correlations of entire Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEP) derived from song and non-song elements.  The second system is Carolina chickadee song which is enormously variable across central Indiana, but nowhere else in the country that we know of.  More importantly, the dimensionality of song properties across these populations is incredibly complex.  This sets up a perfect system where we can ask what role auditory processing of complex sounds plays in the evolution of song-centered culture.  The AEP cross-correlation technique should give us a robust approach with which to address this question.  This study will allow us to ask whether auditory consequences of cultural evolution in birds is in any way analogous to auditory consequences of cultural evolution of tonal vs. non-tonal languages, a dichotomy which is apparently driven by humidity constraints on the human vocal system. 

Zoom Info: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/4326340458

Meeting ID: 432 634 0458

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The working schedule for this academic is here:

https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_schedule

The titles and abstracts of the talks will be added here:

https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_abstracts