Seminars in Hearing Research at Purdue (SHRP)

Date: Thursday, March 21, 2024
Time: 12pm - 1:00pm
Location:  NLSN 1215

Title:  Preliminary results on the auditory processing of dialect-specific properties of Carolina chickadee songs.

Speaker: Romina Andrea Najarro Flores, PhD Candidate, BIO.

Abstract: Birds can change elements of their songs across populations and form dialects, which are cultural communication conventions. Song dialects have primarily been studied from the perspective of the sender; geographical variation of the auditory system that may facilitate dialect formation and persistence has been largely overlooked. We tested whether the geographical distribution of song properties correlates with song-related auditory processing. We predicted that auditory processing of each population would match their corresponding population song properties. Our study system is a series of populations of Carolina chickadees that are distributed across fragmented forests in central Indiana and have quite variable song dialects. The dialects differ from each other and from the common tonal “fee-bee fee-bay” song. More importantly, they differ in the presence and properties of complex shifts in frequency and amplitude modulation. We exposed Carolina chickadees from different populations to tones, AM and FM stimuli and their natural song elements and recorded their Auditory Evoked Potentials. Preliminary data will be presented.

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