Cited by 354Animal Vocal Communication and BehaviorNeuroscience and Music PerceptionMarine animal studies overview

The cocktail party problem: What is it? How can it be solved? And why should animal behaviorists study it?

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Bee, Mark A., Micheyl, Christophe·2008·Journal of Comparative Psychology

Abstract

Animals often use acoustic signals to communicate in groups or social aggregations in which multiple individuals signal within a receiver's hearing range. Consequently, receivers face challenges related to acoustic interference and auditory masking that are not unlike the human cocktail party problem, which refers to the problem of perceiving speech in noisy social settings. Understanding the sensory solutions to the cocktail party problem has been a goal of research on human hearing and speech communication for several decades. Despite a general interest in acoustic signaling in groups, animal behaviorists have devoted comparatively less attention toward understanding how animals solve problems equivalent to the human cocktail party problem. After illustrating how humans and nonhuman animals experience and overcome similar perceptual challenges in cocktail-party-like social environments, this article reviews previous psychophysical and physiological studies of humans and nonhuman animals to describe how the cocktail party problem can be solved. This review also outlines several basic and applied benefits that could result from studies of the cocktail party problem in the context of animal acoustic communication.

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  • Real ecosystems are messy cocktail-party environments full of overlapping calls, echoes, and background noise, making meaning attribution challenging.

    “real ecosystems are messy “cocktail-party” environments (Bee and Micheyl 2008), full of overlapping calls, echoes, and background noise.”

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Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. Beecher MD Hepper PG Successes and failures of parent-offspring recognition systems in animals. Kin Recognition 1991 94 124 Cambridge University Press Cambridge
  2. Darwin CJ Carlyon RP Moore BCJ Auditory grouping. Hearing 1995 387 424 Academic Press New York
  3. Kroodsma DE Miller EH Ecology and Evolution of Acoustic Communication in Birds 1996 Cornell University Press Ithaca, NY
  4. Naguib M McGregor PK Singing interactions in songbirds. Animal Communication Networks 2005 300 319 Cambridge University Press Cambridge
  5. Nelken I Jacobson G Ahdut L Ulanovsky N Neural correlates of comodulation masking release in auditory cortex of cats. European Journal of Neuroscience 2000 12 495 495
  6. Tsuzaki M Takeshima C Irino T Patterson RD Kollmeier B Klump GM Hohmann V Langemann U Mauermann M Uppenkamp S Verhey JL Auditory stream segregation based on speaker size, and identification of size-modulated vowels. Hearing - From Basic Research to Applications 2007 Springer Berlin in press
  7. Wang D Brown GJ Computational Auditory Scene Analysis: Principles, Algorithms, and Applications 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ

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Authors
Bee, M. A., & Micheyl, C.
Affiliations
University of Minnesota (US)
Venue
Journal of Comparative Psychology
Published
2008
Volume
122
Issue
3
Pages
235-251
ISSN
  • 0093-4127 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-2087
  • 0735-7036
OpenAlex
W2047527596
Cited by
347
References
208
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 18
FWCI
11.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of comparative psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R03DC008396; R01DC07657)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
Keywords
cocktail party problem, auditory masking, acoustic interference, speech perception in noise, social signaling, auditory scene analysis, animal hearing
MeSH terms
Animals, Animal Communication, Behavior, Animal, Behaviorism, Cues, Humans, Perceptual Masking, Sound Spectrography, Space Perception, Time Factors

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