Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
2418215 | Animal Behaviour | 2007 | 8 Pages |
Little is known about the role of specific acoustic cues in mammal vocal communication systems. In the current study, we used resynthesized male red deer roars in a habituation–discrimination paradigm to determine whether female red deer are sensitive to shifts in formant frequencies corresponding to the natural variation between the vocal tract lengths of a small and large adult red deer male. Hinds habituated to a given size variant showed a significant dishabituation when they were presented with roars in which the formants had been modified to simulate the other size variant. The significant reduction in behavioural response to a final rehabituation playback showed this was not a chance rebound in response levels. Our results suggest that formants are salient for red deer hinds and that hinds can detect a shift in formant frequencies that may have biological significance. We discuss the possible functions of formant perception in female red deer and more generally in nonhuman mammals.