Detection of simulated patterned echo packets by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

Dolphins performing long-range biosonar tasks sometimes use “packets” of clicks, where inter-click-intervals within each packet are less than the two-way acoustic travel time from dolphin to target. The multi-echo nature of packets results in lower detection thresholds than single echoes; however, other potential benefits of packet use remain unexplored. The present study investigated whether structured temporal patterns observed in click packets impart some advantage in detecting echo-like signals embedded in noise. Two bottlenose dolphins were trained to passively listen and detect simulated packets of echoes in background noise consisting of either steady-state broadband Gaussian noise, or Gaussian noise containing randomly presented impulses similar to dolphin clicks. Four different inter-stimulus-interval (ISI) patterns (constant, random, increasing, or decreasing ISI within each packet) were tested. It was hypothesized that decreasing ISIs—found naturally in dolphin packets—would result in the lowest thresholds, while random, unlearnable patterns would result in the highest. However, no biologically significant differences in threshold were found among the four ISI patterns for either noise condition. Thus, the bottlenose dolphin's stereotypical pattern of decreasing ISI during active echolocation did not appear to provide an advantage in packet detection in this passive listening task.