"Neural Displays for Perception in Echolocating Bats"
Dr. James Simmons Lab
My laboratory studies the biological sonar systems of bats. The big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, emits ultrasonic, frequency-modulated (FM) echolocation sounds and exhibits unusually sophisticated real-time signal-processing techniques for auditory representation of FM echoes. The principal goal of my research is to understand how natural images are created in perception from neural reconstruction of the target scene by the bat's brain.
Dr. Andrea Simmons
Dr. Simmons lab published results of field experiments demonstrating that male bullfrogs do not use acoustic cues perceived as timbre or roughness by humans for mediating male-male vocal interactions (which function to regulate aggressive activity). These new behavioral data are consistent with her neurophysiological results demonstrating that the frog's auditory system is specialized to detect periodicity cues in sounds
