Dear Colleagues,
I would like to draw your attention to the following paper, published in
the January edition of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America:
Deecke, V.B. and Janik, V.M. 2006. Automated categorization of
bioacoustic signals: Avoiding perceptual pitfalls. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America 119 (1): 645-653
ABSTRACT
Dividing the acoustic repertoires of animals into biologically relevant
categories presents a widespread problem in the study of animal sound
communication, essential to any comparison of repertoires between
contexts, individuals, populations, or species. Automated procedures
allow rapid, repeatable, and objective categorization, but often perform
poorly at detecting biologically meaningful sound classes. Arguably this
is because many automated methods fail to address the nonlinearities of
animal sound perception. We present a new method of categorization that
incorporates dynamic time-warping and an adaptive resonance theory (ART)
neural network. This method was tested on 104 randomly chosen whistle
contours from four captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), as
well as 50 frequency contours extracted from calls of transient killer
whales (Orcinus orca). The dolphin data included known biologically
meaningful categories in the form of 42 stereotyped whistles produced
when each individual was isolated from its group. The automated
procedure correctly grouped all but two stereotyped whistles into
separate categories, thus performing as well as human observers. The
categorization of killer whale calls largely corresponded to visual and
aural categorizations by other researchers. These results suggest that
this methodology provides a repeatable and objective means of dividing
bioacoustic signals into biologically meaningful categories.
KEYWORDS
Automated categorization, automated classification, killer whale,
bottlenose dolphin, signature whistle, neural network, call recognition,
repertoire size, dynamic time-warping
Best regards
Volker Deecke
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Volker Deecke, Ph.D.
Marine Mammal Research Unit Cetacean Research Lab
University of BC Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
AERL Bldg., 2202 Main Mall P.O. Box 3232
Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X8
Canada Canada
Phone: +1.604.822.9150 +1.604.659.3429/3430
Fax: +1.604.822.8180 +1.604.659.3599
WWW: http://www.marinemammal.org/MMRU
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