Spontaneous rhythms in a harbor seal pup calls
Objectives: Timing and rhythm (i.e. temporal structure) are crucial, though historically neglected, dimensions of
animal communication. When investigating these in non-human animals, it is often difficult to balance experimental
control and ecological validity. Here I present the first step of an attempt to balance the two, focusing on the timing
of vocal rhythms in a harbor seal pup (Phoca vitulina). Collection of this data had a clear aim: To find spontaneous
vocal rhythms in this individual in order to design individually-adapted and ecologically-relevant stimuli for a later
playback experiment.
Data description: The calls of one seal pup were recorded. The audio recordings were annotated using Praat, a free
software to analyze vocalizations in humans and other animals. The annotated onsets and offsets of vocalizations
were then imported in a Python script. The script extracted three types of timing information: the duration of calls,
the intervals between calls’ onsets, and the intervals between calls’ maximum-intensity peaks. Based on the annotated
data, available to download, I provide simple descriptive statistics for these temporal measures, and compare their
distributions.
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