Auditory priming as a means to study attention in the acoustic parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea
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1
University of Toronto Scarborough, Department of Biological Sciences, Canada
Reproductive success in the acoustic parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea, depends on their ability to accurately localize their field cricket hosts, and localization involves directional hearing of cricket calling songs. The dominant frequency of the sound pulses within the call song of field crickets are generally at 5 kHz, while species-specific song differences occur in the temporal organization of these sound pulses. For Gryllus rubens, the primary local hosts of Floridian Ormia, this is reflected with pulse durations of 10ms and interpulse intervals of 10ms. Prior phonotaxis studies in Ormia have described parameters important for host recognition and localization. However, little is known of the effects of dynamic stimuli (i.e. stimuli that change during an on-going behavioural response) that reflect the diverse acoustic environment surrounding Ormia. Such dynamic changes may affect the ability to maintain orientation and/or attention to a single target. Using a spherical trackball system, and presenting flies with synthetic cricket songs from speakers oriented at +/- 45 degrees, relative to their mid-line axis, walking phonotaxis responses of gravid females to paired auditory stimuli combining preferred and non-preferred songs were assessed. In the first experimental condition, we presented flies with cricket songs composed of individual sound pulses (of duration =10ms) that varied in interpulse interval (i.e. 50ms, 100ms, 200ms, 300ms, 400ms, 500ms, 1000ms), and measured orientation response. In the second condition, we first presented flies with local host song (pulse duration = 10ms; interpulse interval = 10ms) before presenting individual pulses with varying interpulse interval; same as in above condition. The time interval between cricket pulse offset and test pulse onset varied according to interpulse interval of test pulses (e.g. 200ms for test pulses with interpulse interval of 200ms). Stimuli presentation was randomized, and replicated from both left and right speakers to control for order effects and directional biases, respectfully. We show that flies do not respond to individual pulses with ‘non-preferred’ interpulse intervals (non-preferred since they exceed the10ms reflective of their hosts) when presented on their own, but will respond if the pulses followed (or were ‘primed’) with presentation of local host cricket song (‘preferred’). Furthermore, we show that the nature of this response depends on the relative delay between the two stimuli, which is understood to vary depending on the interpulse interval in the non-preferred song being considered. With delays between offset of preferred and onset of non-preferred songs below 200ms, walking responses of the flies towards the initial preferred cricket song showed a steady decay soon after onset of the non-preferred song. When the two songs were separated by more than 200ms (up to 1000ms), however, flies elicited pulse by pulse steering responses to each pulse onset in the non-preferred songs, and this was maintained until the end of stimulus presentation. Our results suggest an ecological purpose of auditory priming as a model for studies of attention in the fly.
Keywords:
Acoustics,
Attention,
Auditory Perception,
Behavior,
phonotaxis,
priming
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for student poster award)
Topic:
Learning, Memory and Behavioral Plasticity
Citation:
Koucoulas
D and
Mason
A
(2012). Auditory priming as a means to study attention in the acoustic parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00368
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Received:
01 May 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Dean Koucoulas, University of Toronto Scarborough, Department of Biological Sciences, Scarborough, Canada, dean.koucoulas@utoronto.ca