PSIII-14 The effects of variant auditory stimuli on goat kids’ formant patterns from birth to weaning

Abstract

Abstract The objective of this study was to determine if exposure to human voice during early development affected the frequency of vocal formants (peaks in the harmonic spectrum) in Boer goat kids (n=13). The proposed mechanism is due to mimicry and imprinting on human or goat by comparing the developmental changes based on the presence of human vocal frequencies. From birth to weaning at d 60, goat kids were exposed to various ambient sound patterns through 3 treatments and frequency changes were studied to see if there was a change due to the presence of human voice. Treatment 1 was exposed to human voice vocalization via recording (n=5), treatment 2 was exposed to doe vocalization (n=4), and treatment 3 had no human or doe vocalization (n=4). Throughout the study, all kids were located in similarly controlled pen sizes roughly 2.44 x 3.05 m, received the same diets that exceed the NRC requirements for goat kids and ad libitum access to water. Kids were isolated and individually recorded weekly for approximately 120 to 1000 s using VoceVista Software. The software allowed researchers to record the frequency and intensity of kids’ bleats over the 7 wk period. Each goat kid’s fundamental frequency and second through fifth harmonics were collected at 5 locations through each week’s recording. There was no significant difference found between the three treatment groups throughout the study. However, there was a significant difference (P< 0.05) between the fundamental frequency, second, third, fourth, and fifth harmonics over the 7 wk period. The average fundamental frequency for wk 1 was (573 ± 61 Hz) compared to wk 7 (467 ± 47 Hz). The results of this study suggest that as the kids developed their frequencies progressively lowered over the 7 wk and various auditory exposures had no effect on their formant patterns.