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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Behav. Neurosci.
Sec. Individual and Social Behaviors
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1495579

Latencies of conditioned vocal responses to hearing test tones in killer whales (Orcinus orca)

Provisionally accepted
Jared Stephens Jared Stephens 1*Alyssa W Accomando Alyssa W Accomando 1,2Kayla Nease Kayla Nease 1,3Brian K Branstetter Brian K Branstetter 1,4Todd Robeck Todd Robeck 5
  • 1 National Marine Mammal Foundation, San Diego, United States
  • 2 Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California, United States
  • 3 SeaWorld San Deigo, San Diego, California, United States
  • 4 Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), Norfolk, Nebraska, United States
  • 5 SeaWorld Entertainment, Orlando, Florida, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Perceived loudness is challenging to study in non-human animals. However, reaction time to an acoustic stimulus is a useful behavioral proxy for the assessment of perceived loudness. Understanding the effect of sound frequency and level on perceived loudness would improve prediction and modeling of anthropogenic noise impacts on marine mammals. In this study, behavioral hearing tests conducted with two killer whales were analyzed to capture conditioned vocal response latency, which is the time between the onset of the acoustic signal and the onset of the response (i.e., reaction time). The results showed that vocal reaction times decreased with increasing sensation level (i.e., sound pressure level above the baseline hearing threshold), while the effect of frequency on reaction time varied between the subjects. Reaction time as a function of sound duration is described, and equal-latency contours are presented. The data suggest that vocal reaction time is related to loudness perception in killer whales.

    Keywords: Marine mammal, Reaction Time, equal latency, loudness, sensation level

    Received: 12 Sep 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Stephens, Accomando, Nease, Branstetter and Robeck. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jared Stephens, National Marine Mammal Foundation, San Diego, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.