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Characterization of sound subunits for humpback whale song analysis

Characterization of sound subunits for humpback whale song analysis
Characterization of sound subunits for humpback whale song analysis
The songs produced by male humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, during the breeding season have been increasingly studied in the last couple of decades with methods based mainly on their spectrographic characteristics.
Songs were characterised as series of units - defined by Payne as continuous sounds between two silences - associated in specific patterns, similarly to the way in which bird songs are formed.

Previous work highlighted the need for objective methods for humpback whale sound units classification; for this purpose, various automatic clustering algorithms were developed to study how units are associated to produce themes that are repeated throughout the song duration and to compare them across whale populations and from year to year. However, detailed analysis of the vocalisations showed that the features of a unit can change abruptly throughout its duration making it difficult to characterise and cluster them systematically.

We propose a new approach for song segmentation based on the identification of subunits that are characterised by looking at the changes of their frequency content through time. Typically units within a song consist of several elements - which we refer to as subunits - that have distinct structure, i.e. units are formed as combination of subunits. The distinction between subunits and units should improve the accuracy of classification algorithms, especially for those vocalisations that present a complex structure that varies significantly with time.
Pace, F.
5832bbe1-6831-473a-a55a-b75f3acac71d
White, P.R.
2dd2477b-5aa9-42e2-9d19-0806d994eaba
Adam, O.
7b35e29a-7e89-470d-987a-e45e1fa8b717
Pace, F.
5832bbe1-6831-473a-a55a-b75f3acac71d
White, P.R.
2dd2477b-5aa9-42e2-9d19-0806d994eaba
Adam, O.
7b35e29a-7e89-470d-987a-e45e1fa8b717

Pace, F., White, P.R. and Adam, O. (2009) Characterization of sound subunits for humpback whale song analysis. 4th International Workshop on Detection, Classification and Localization of Marine Mammals using Passive Acoustics, Pavia di Udine, Italy. 09 - 12 Sep 2009.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

The songs produced by male humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, during the breeding season have been increasingly studied in the last couple of decades with methods based mainly on their spectrographic characteristics.
Songs were characterised as series of units - defined by Payne as continuous sounds between two silences - associated in specific patterns, similarly to the way in which bird songs are formed.

Previous work highlighted the need for objective methods for humpback whale sound units classification; for this purpose, various automatic clustering algorithms were developed to study how units are associated to produce themes that are repeated throughout the song duration and to compare them across whale populations and from year to year. However, detailed analysis of the vocalisations showed that the features of a unit can change abruptly throughout its duration making it difficult to characterise and cluster them systematically.

We propose a new approach for song segmentation based on the identification of subunits that are characterised by looking at the changes of their frequency content through time. Typically units within a song consist of several elements - which we refer to as subunits - that have distinct structure, i.e. units are formed as combination of subunits. The distinction between subunits and units should improve the accuracy of classification algorithms, especially for those vocalisations that present a complex structure that varies significantly with time.

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More information

Published date: 12 September 2009
Venue - Dates: 4th International Workshop on Detection, Classification and Localization of Marine Mammals using Passive Acoustics, Pavia di Udine, Italy, 2009-09-09 - 2009-09-12

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 160861
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/160861
PURE UUID: 04545c7d-4378-4853-8587-f764db728c26
ORCID for P.R. White: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4787-8713

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 21 Jul 2010 08:19
Last modified: 11 Dec 2021 02:48

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Contributors

Author: F. Pace
Author: P.R. White ORCID iD
Author: O. Adam

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