Relating Behavioral Context to Acoustic Parameters of Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Vocalizations
Abstract
This thesis presents methods to analyze the function of vocalizations of the bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus. It uses the social interaction as the basic unit of analysis, and maintains a deliberate focus on quantitative and replicable analyses throughout. A method for determining identities of vocalizing animals in a lagoon was developed. This method combined passive acoustic localization with video sampling to determine which animal vocalized in a captive lagoon. It fills an urgent need for unbiased identification of vocalizations of undisturbed dolphins where details of social interactions can be followed without affecting the behavior of the subjects. This thesis uses several new quantitative methods to parameterize vocalizations and relate these to behavior from dolphins. Vocalizations within the lagoon tended to occur around the time of onset of behaviors produced by the focal dolphin. A comparison of vocalizations during affiliative and agonistic interactions revealed that this was related to agonistic but not affiliative interactions. Vocalizations in a time window around submissive interactions were localized and found to be emitted by interactants (vs. non-interactants) more often than expected. Use of different vocalization types varied depending on the context of the agonistic interaction, with more vocalizations occurring after the submissive behaviors than before.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA405881
Entities
People
- Rebecca E. Thomas
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology