Perception of Echo Phase Information in Bat Sonar

James A. Simmons

doi:10.1126/science.451543

Perception of Echo Phase Information in Bat Sonar

DOI Web Site 被引用文献6件

James A. Simmons

Departments of Psychology and Biology, and Program in Neural Sciences, Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130

抄録

<jats:p> Echolocating bats ( <jats:italic>Eptesicus fuscus</jats:italic> ) can detect changes as small as 500 nanoseconds in the arrival time of sonar echoes when these changes appear as jitter or alternations in arrival time from one echo to the next. The psychophysical function relating the bat's performance to the magnitude of the jitter corresponds to the half-wave rectified cross-correlation function between the emitted sonar signals and the echoes. The bat perceives the phase or period structure of the sounds, which cover the 25- to 100-kilohertz frequency range, as these are represented in the auditory system after peripheral transformation. The acoustic image of a sonar target is apparently derived from time-domain or periodicity information processing by the nervous system. </jats:p>