Phantom Echoes Research Articles

The effects of range and echo-phase on range resolution in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) performing a successive comparison taska).

Echolocating bats and dolphins use biosonar to determine target range, but differences in range discrimination thresholds have been reported for the two species. Whether these differences represent a true difference in their sensory system capability is unknown. Here, the dolphin's range discrimination threshold as a function of absolute range and echo-phase was investigated. Using phantom echoes, the dolphins were trained to echo-inspect two simulated targets and indicate the closer target by pressing a paddle. One target was presented at a time, requiring the dolphin to hold the initial range in memory as they compared it to the second target. Range was simulated by manipulating echo-delay while the received echo levels, relative to the dolphins' clicks, were held constant. Range discrimination thresholds were determined at seven different ranges from 1.75 to 20 m. In contrast to bats, range discrimination thresholds increased from 4 to 75 cm, across the entire ranges tested. To investigate the acoustic features used more directly, discrimination thresholds were determined when the echo was given a random phase shift (±180°). Results for the constant-phase versus the random-phase echo were quantitatively similar, suggesting that dolphins used the envelope of the echo waveform to determine the difference in range.

Using “phantom” echoes to study dolphin biosonar

Biosonar studies have greatly benefited from the use of electronic, or “phantom,” echoes. In this paradigm, amplitude and timing information are extracted from an emitted biosonar pulse, then a delayed signal is broadcast to the animal to appear as an echo from a more distant target. Phantom echoes provide unique capabilities for studying biosonar, since they allow echo features such as amplitude and delay to be independently manipulated. In 1987, Whit Au and colleagues described a phantom echo system for use with marine mammals [Au et al. (1987). “Phantom electronic target for dolphin sonar research,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 711-713]. In this system, delayed broadcasts of one or more replicas of the dolphin click were triggered by dolphin click emissions. A major improvement in phantom echo systems was later described by Aubauer and Au (1998) [“Phantom echo generation: A new technique for investigating dolphin echolocation,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 1165-1170], who simulated the impulse response of a physical target, rather than broadcasting a stereotyped waveform. In this talk, phantom echo system concepts are briefly presented and several recent applications of phantom echo systems—inspired by the work of Aubauer and Au—are discussed. [Work supported by ONR.]

The echolocation beam of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): High-resolution measurements of horizontal beam patterns and nearfield/farfield transitions

The work of Whitlow Au and colleagues has demonstrated that dolphin biosonar forms a highly directional, forward-facing beam. In our recent studies, we have expanded upon previous work by making biosonar beam measurements using high-resolution hydrophone arrays with up to 48 hydrophones. Bottlenose dolphins were trained to echolocate on both physical targets and phantom echo generators, with clicks simultaneously recorded on all hydrophones at a sampling rate of 2 MHz. Target ranges (and simulated target ranges for phantom echoes) were varied in order to examine the resulting effects on the spatial characteristics of the acoustic field. The directivity index of the echolocation beam increased with increasing click level and center frequency, and recordings from extreme off-axis azimuths displayed a two-pulse pattern best explained by internal reflections off of the premaxillary bones. High-density hydrophone arrays placed near echolocating dolphins’ heads demonstrated that a transition from the geometric ...

A prior-knowledge-based threshold segmentation method of forward-looking sonar images for underwater linear object detection

Raw sonar images may not be used for underwater detection or recognition directly because disturbances such as the grating-lobe and multi-path disturbance affect the gray-level distribution of sonar images and cause phantom echoes. To search for a more robust segmentation method with a reasonable computational cost, a prior-knowledge-based threshold segmentation method of underwater linear object detection is discussed. The possibility of guiding the segmentation threshold evolution of forward-looking sonar images using prior knowledge is verified by experiment. During the threshold evolution, the collinear relation of two lines that correspond to double peaks in the voting space of the edged image is used as the criterion of termination. The interaction is reflected in the sense that the Hough transform contributes to the basis of the collinear relation of lines, while the binary image generated from the current threshold provides the resource of the Hough transform. The experimental results show that the proposed method could maintain a good tradeoff between the segmentation quality and the computational time in comparison with conventional segmentation methods. The proposed method redounds to a further process for unsupervised underwater visual understanding.

Investigating the temporal dynamics of dolphin biosonar using phantom echoes and auditory evoked potentials

Phantom echo generation replaces physical targets with electronic signals that can be delayed in time, scaled in amplitude, and broadcast to an echolocating animal to simulate echoes from distant objects. Compared to physical targets, phantom echoes have the advantages of allowing for instantaneous changes in target characteristics, independent manipulation of echo delay and echo amplitude, and easy randomization of target range. At the Navy Marine Mammal Program in San Diego, California, phantom echo generation is combined with measurements of auditory evoked potentials to investigate the temporal dynamics of biosonar signal emission and reception in bottlenose dolphins. The studies are primarily focused on examining automatic gain control mechanisms by measuring changes in hearing sensitivity — assessed via the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) to an amplitude modulated tone — over time courses corresponding to single biosonar click-echo pairs. Results show the ASSR amplitude initially decreases at ...

Dolphin strategies for long-range object detection and change detection

Dolphin strategies for detecting objects and changes in objects were investigated by having three trained bottlenose dolphins perform long-range echolocation tasks. The tasks featured the use of “phantom” echoes produced by capturing the dolphin’s outgoing echolocation clicks, convolving the clicks with the impulse response of a physical target to create an echo waveform, then broadcasting the delayed, scaled echo waveform back to the dolphin. Dolphins were trained to report the presence of phantom echoes or a change in phantom echoes. Target simulated ranges varied from 25 to 800 m. At ranges below 75 m, all dolphins followed a single click-echo paradigm, where inter-click intervals exceeded the two-transit time (i.e., the dolphins waited to receive the echo from a click before emitting the next click). As the range increased beyond 75 m, two of the three dolphins increasingly produced bursts, or “packets,” of several clicks, then waited for the packet of echoes to return before emitting another packet of clicks. The third dolphin instead utilized very high click repetition rates. The use of click packets may be a response to a limitation in the dolphin’s ability to employ multi-echo processing with large inter-echo delays.

Dolphin “packet” use during long-range echolocation tasks

When echolocating, dolphins typically emit a single broadband "click," then wait to receive the echo before emitting another click. However, previous studies have shown that during long-range echolocation tasks, they may instead emit a burst, or "packet," of several clicks, then wait for the packet of echoes to return before emitting another packet of clicks. The reasons for the use of packets are unknown. In this study, packet use was examined by having trained bottlenose dolphins perform long-range echolocation tasks. The tasks featured "phantom" echoes produced by capturing the dolphin's outgoing echolocation clicks, convolving the clicks with an impulse response to create an echo waveform, and then broadcasting the delayed, scaled echo to the dolphin. Dolphins were trained to report the presence of phantom echoes or a change in phantom echoes. Target range varied from 25 to 800 m. At ranges below 75 m, the dolphins rarely used packets. As the range increased beyond 75 m, two of the three dolphins increasingly produced packets, while the third dolphin instead utilized very high click repetition rates. The use of click packets appeared to be governed more by echo delay (target range) than echo amplitude.

Dolphins use “packets” of broadband clicks during long range echolocation tasks

When echolocating, dolphins typically emit a single short duration, high-frequency, broadband “click,” then wait for the echo to return before emitting another click. However, previous studies have shown that dolphins and belugas performing long-range echolocation tasks may instead emit a burst, or “packet,” of several clicks, then wait for the packet of echoes to return before emitting another packet of clicks. The exact reasons for the use of packets, rather than individual clicks, is unknown. In this study, the use of packets by dolphins was examined by having trained bottlenose dolphins perform long-range echolocation tasks. The tasks featured the use of “phantom” echoes produced by capturing the dolphin’s outgoing echolocation clicks, convolving the clicks with the impulse response of a physical target to create an echo waveform, then broadcasting the delayed, scaled echo waveform back to the dolphin. Dolphins were trained to report the presence of phantom echoes or a change in phantom echoes. At ranges below 75 m, the dolphins rarely used packets of clicks. For ranges greater than 75 m, the likelihood of packet use was related to both target range and echo strength. [Work supported by the SSC Pacific Naval Innovative Science and Engineering (NISE) program.]

Classification of electronically generated phantom targets by an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

Animal behavior experiments require not only stimulus control of the animal's behavior, but also precise control of the stimulus itself. In discrimination experiments with real target presentation, the complex interdependence between the physical dimensions and the backscattering process of an object make it difficult to extract and control relevant echo parameters separately. In other phantom-echo experiments, the echoes were relatively simple and could only simulate certain properties of targets. The echo-simulation method utilized in this paper can be used to transform any animal echolocation sound into phantom echoes of high fidelity and complexity. The developed phantom-echo system is implemented on a digital signal-processing board and gives an experimenter fully programmable control over the echo-generating process and the echo structure itself. In this experiment, the capability of a dolphin to discriminate between acoustically simulated phantom replicas of targets and their real equivalents was tested. Phantom replicas were presented in a probe technique during a materials discrimination experiment. The animal accepted the phantom echoes and classified them in the same manner as it classified real targets.

Discrimination of phantom targets by an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)

The ability to make fine distinctions in properties of targets is one of the outstanding characteristics of the dolphin sonar system. Behavioral experiments with these animals can reveal target echo features that can be used to model the biological sonar in order to evolve technical systems with equivalent capabilities. A phantom echo generator was developed in order to obtain programmable control over echo parameters in the time and frequency domains. Dolphin sounds are recorded with a hydrophone, transformed into the desired phantom echoes, and played back with a projector hydrophone. The signal transformation is based on the acoustic impulse response of a target and is executed on a DSP system in real time. In the first experiment the capability of a dolphin to discriminate between acoustically simulated phantom replicas of targets and their real equivalents was tested. Phantom replicas were presented in a probe technique during a materials discrimination experiment. The animal accepted the phantom echoes and classified them in the same way as it classified real targets.

Target ranging and the role of time-frequency structure of synthetic echoes in big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus

Echolocating bats judge the distance to a target on basis of the delay between the emitted cry and the returning echo. In a phantom echo set-up it was investigated how changes in the time-frequency structure of synthetic echoes affect ranging accuracy of big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus. A one channel phantom target simulator and a Y/N paradigm was used. Five Eptesicus fuscus were trained to discriminate between phantom targets with different virtual distances (delays). The phantom echo was stored in a memory and broadcast from a loudspeaker after a certain delay following the bat's triggering of the system via a trigger microphone. The ranging accuracy was compared using 5 different signals with equal energy as phantom echoes: a standard cry (a natural bat cry), two kinds of noise signals, a high pass, and a low pass filtered version of the standard cry. The standard cry was recorded from one of the bats while judging the distance to a real target. The duration was 1.1 ms, the first harmonic swept down from 55 to 25 kHz and there was energy also in the second and third harmonic. Both noise signals had the same duration, power spectrum, and energy as the standard cry. One noise signal was stored in a memory and hence was exactly the same each time the bat triggered the system. The other variable noise signal was produced by storing the envelope of the standard cry and multiplying on-line with band pass filtered noise. The time-frequency structure (e.g. rise time) of this noise signal changed from triggering to triggering. The filtered signals were produced by either 40 kHz high pass or 40 kHz low pass filtering of the standard cry. The range difference thresholds for the 5 bats were around 1–2 cm (51–119 us) using the standard cry as echo. The range difference threshold with both noise signals was 7–8 cm (around 450 μs delay difference). The 40 kHz high pass filtered cry increased the threshold to approximately twice the threshold with the standard cry. With the 40 kHz low pass filtered cry the threshold was increased 2.5–3 times relative to the threshold with the standard cry. A single bat was tested with a signal filtered with a 55 kHz low pass filter leaving the whole first harmonic. The threshold was the same as that with the standard signal. The reduced ranging accuracy with the filtered signals indicates that the full band width of the first harmonic is utilised for ranging by the bats. The substantial reduction in accuracy with the noise signals indicates that not only the full band width but also the orderly time-frequency structure (the FM sweep) of the cry is important for ranging in echolocating bats.

Arctiid moth clicks can degrade the accuracy of range difference discrimination in echolocating big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus

Four big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) born and raised in captivity were trained using the Yes/No psychophysical method to report whether a virtual sonar target was at a standard distance or not. At threshold bats were able to detect a minimum range difference of 6 mm (a delta t of 36 microseconds). Following threshold determinations, a click burst 1.8 ms long containing 5 pulses from the ruby tiger moth, Phragmatobia fuliginosa (Arctiidae), was presented randomly after each phantom echo. The sound energy of the click burst was -4 dB relative to that of the phantom echo. Clicks presented for the very first time could startle naive bats to different degrees depending on the individual. The bats' performance deteriorated by as much as 4000% when the click burst started within a window of about 1.5 ms before the phantom echo. Even when one of ten phantom echoes was preceded by a click burst, the range difference discrimination worsened by 200%. Hence, clicks falling within the 1.5 ms time window seem to interfere with the bat's neural timing mechanism. The clicks of arctiid moths appear to serve 3 functions: they can startle naive bats, interfere with range difference determinations, or they can signal the moth's distastefulness, as shown in earlier studies.

Detection of complex echoes in noise by an echolocating dolphin.

Dolphins echolocate with short broadband acoustic signals that have good time resolution properties. Received echoes are often complex, with many resolvable highlights or components caused by reflection of the incident signal from external and internal boundaries of a target and from different propagational modes within a target. A series of experiments was performed to investigate how dolphins perceive complex echoes. Echoes were produced by a microprocessor-controlled electronic target simulator that captured each emitted click and retransmitted the signal back to the animal after an appropriate time delay. The use of this "phantom" target allowed for precise control of the number of highlights, the time separation between highlights, and the relative amplitudes of highlights in the simulated echoes. An echolocating dolphin was trained to perform a target detection task in the presence of masking noise using these phantom echoes. The properties of simulated echoes were systematically varied, and corresponding shifts in the dolphin's detection threshold were observed, allowing for inferences of how the dolphin perceived echoes. The dolphin performed like an energy detector with an integration time of approximately 264 microseconds.

The preception of complex echoes by an echolocating dolphin

Dolphins echolocate with short broadband acoustic signals which have good time resolution properties. Received echoes are often complex, with many resolvable highlights or components caused by reflection of the incident signal from external and internal boundaries of a target and from different propagational modes within a target. A series of experiments was performed to investigate how dolphins perceive complex echoes. Echoes were produced by a microprocessor‐controlled electronic target simulator which captured each emitted click and retransmitted the signal back to the animal after an appropriate delay time. The use of a “phantom” target allowed for precise control of the number of highlights, the time separation between highlights and the relative amplitudes of highlights in the simulated echoes. An echolocating dolphin was trained to perform a target detection task in the presence of masking noise using these phantom echoes. The properties of simulated echoes were systematically varied, and corresponding shifts in the dolphin's detection threshold were observed, allowing the inference of how the dolphin perceived the echoes. The dolphin performed like an energy detector with an integration time of approximately 290 μs.