Ronan and the legacy of Schusterman’s California sea lions

Abstract

California sea lion Ronan was named in honor of Dr. Ron Schusterman, a pioneer in psychoacoustic studies of marine mammals. His early work with sea lions Sam, Rocky, Rio and others established rigorous methods for sensory assessment including those based on signal detection theory and the psychological principles underlying auditory learning and discrimination. Ronan is the most recent sea lion to join the research program in Santa Cruz, CA, adding to a long legacy of sensory and cognitive research. For more than a decade, Ronan has contributed to studies that increase understanding of marine mammal bioacoustics. These include marine and terrestrial audiograms that are often cited as representatives for the species, studies of ultrasonic hearing ability, and listening tasks performed in complex masking scenarios. Ronan is best known for her work on rhythmic entrainment, demonstrating auditory-motor synchronization and challenging theories as to the neural origin of this behavior. Ronan’s current psychoacoustics work is focused on understanding hearing at very low frequencies (<100 Hz) and the effects of parameters such as noise bandwidth and level on auditory masking.