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Research Article
A false killer whale reduces its hearing sensitivity when a loud sound is preceded by a warning
Paul E. Nachtigall, Alexander Ya. Supin
Journal of Experimental Biology 2013 216: 3062-3070; doi: 10.1242/jeb.085068
Paul E. Nachtigall
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii, PO Box 1106, Kailua, HI 96734, USA
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  • For correspondence: nachtiga@hawaii.edu
Alexander Ya. Supin
Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 33 Leninsky Prospect, 119071, Moscow, Russia
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SUMMARY

We investigated the possibility of conditioned dampening of whale hearing thresholds when a loud sound is preceded by a warning sound. The loud sound was a tone of 20 kHz, 170 dB re. 1 μPa, 5 s. Hearing sensitivity was measured using pip-train test stimuli and auditory evoked potential recording. The same test-sound stimuli served as warning sounds. The durations of the warning sounds were varied randomly to avoid locking an anticipated conditioning effect to the timing immediately before the loud sound. When the warning sound lasted from 1 to 9 s or from 5 to 35 s prior to the loud sound, hearing thresholds before the loud sound increased, relative to the baseline, by 12.7 and 7.3 dB, respectively. When the warning sound duration varied within a range of 20 to 140 s, the threshold increase was as low as 3.0 dB. The observed hearing threshold increase was not a result of the unconditioned effect of the loud sound, like a temporary threshold shift, so it was considered to be a manifestation of a conditioned dampening of hearing when the subject anticipated the quick appearance of a loud sound, most likely to protect its hearing.

FOOTNOTES

  • AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

    The authors contributed equally to the completion of this effort.

  • COMPETING INTERESTS

    No competing interests declared.

  • FUNDING

    This research project was supported by an Office of Naval Research grant to P.E.N. [N00014-12-1-02-12].

  • LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

    AEP
    auditory evoked potential
    EFR
    envelope following response
    PTS
    permanent threshold shift
    TTS
    temporary threshold shift
    • © 2013. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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    Keywords

    • Whale
    • Hearing
    • Conditioning
    • Auditory evoked potentials

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    Research Article
    A false killer whale reduces its hearing sensitivity when a loud sound is preceded by a warning
    Paul E. Nachtigall, Alexander Ya. Supin
    Journal of Experimental Biology 2013 216: 3062-3070; doi: 10.1242/jeb.085068
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    Research Article
    A false killer whale reduces its hearing sensitivity when a loud sound is preceded by a warning
    Paul E. Nachtigall, Alexander Ya. Supin
    Journal of Experimental Biology 2013 216: 3062-3070; doi: 10.1242/jeb.085068

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