Dear MARMAM subscribers,
Our new paper entitled "Mother–pup recognition mechanisms in
Australia sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) using uni‑ and multi‑modal
approaches" has just been published in the special issue
"Cognition in marine mammals" of the journal Animal Cognition.
The paper can
be viewed from this link: https://rdcu.be/cPOHl
Authors: Isabelle Charrier, Benjamin Pitcher & Robert
Harcourt.
This review covers all the experimental work done these last 16
years on wild Australian sea lion in collaboration with Macquarie
University researchers (Australia).
Abstract:
Communication is the process by which
one emitter conveys information to one or several receivers to
induce a response (behavioral or physiological) by the receiver.
Communication plays a major role in various biological functions
and may involve signals and cues from different sensory
modalities. Traditionally, investigations of animal communication
focused on a single sensory modality, yet communication is often
multimodal. As these different processes may be quite complex and
therefore difficult to disentangle, one approach is to first study
each sensorial modality separately. With this refined
understanding of individual senses, revealing how they interact
becomes possible as the characteristics and properties of each
modality can be accounted for, making a multimodal approach
feasible. Using this framework, researchers undertook systematic,
experimental investigations on mother–pup recognition processes in
a colonial pinniped species, the Australian sea lion Neophoca
cinerea. The research first assessed the abilities of mothers and
pups to identify each other by their voice using playback
experiments. Second, they assessed whether visual cues are used by
both mothers and pups to distinguish them from conspecifics,
and/or whether females discriminate the odor of their filial pup
from those from non-filial pups. Finally, to understand if the
information transmitted by different sensory modalities is
analyzed synergistically or if there is a hierarchy among the
sensory modalities, experiments were performed involving different
sensory cues simultaneously. These findings are discussed with
regards to the active space of each sensory cue, and of the
potential enhancements that may arise by assessing information
from different modalities.
Keywords: Communication· Sensory
modalities· Multimodal recognition· Australian sea lion
If you need a
pdf reprint, please, contact me.
Best regards,
Isabelle
Charrier
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Isabelle CHARRIER, DR-CNRS
Acoustic Communications Team
Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay (NeuroPSI), UMR 9197 CNRS
Campus CEA Saclay, 151 route de la Rotonde, 91400 Saclay
Bâtiment 151
Tel:+33 (0)1.69.82.60.99
Email: isabelle.charrier@cnrs.fr
https://sites.google.com/view/isabelle-charrier
Team website: http://www.cb.u-psud.fr
https://neuropsi.cnrs.fr
https://twitter.com/bioacteam
https://www.facebook.com/bioacteam91
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4873-2342
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