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Modelling asymmetry in the peripheral auditory system of the lizard

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Abstract

The ears of lizards are highly directional. The directionality is generated by strong acoustical coupling of the eardrums. A simple lumped-parameter model of the ear followed by binaural comparisons has been shown to perform successful phonotaxis in robot implementations. However, such a model will produce localization errors in the form of response bias if the ears are asymmetrical. We have evaluated how large errors are generated by asymmetry using simulations of the ear model in Mathematica 5.2. The study shows that the effect of asymmetry is minimal around the most directional frequency of the ear, but that biases reduce the useful bandwidth of localization.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230, Odense M, Denmark

    Lei Zhang & John Hallam

  2. Institute of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230, Odense M, Denmark

    Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard

Authors
  1. Lei Zhang
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  2. John Hallam
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  3. Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lei Zhang.

Additional information

This work was presented in part at the First European Workshop on Artificial Life and Robotics, Vienna, Austria, July 12–13, 2007

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Zhang, L., Hallam, J. & Christensen-Dalsgaard, J. Modelling asymmetry in the peripheral auditory system of the lizard. Artif Life Robotics 13, 5–9 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-008-0504-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-008-0504-x

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