Title
A segmentation algorithm for zebra finch song at the note level
Abstract
Songbirds have been widely used as a model for studying neuronal circuits that relate to vocal learning and production. An important component of this research relies on quantitative methods for characterizing song acoustics. Song in zebra finches-the most commonly studied songbird species-consists of a sequence of notes, defined as acoustically distinct segments in the song spectrogram. Here, we present an algorithm that exploits the correspondence between note boundaries and rapid changes in overall sound energy to perform an initial automated segmentation of song. The algorithm uses linear fits to short segments of the amplitude envelope to detect sudden changes in song signal amplitude. A variable detection threshold based on average power greatly improves the performance of the algorithm. Automated boundaries and those picked by human observers agree to within 8ms for 83% of boundaries.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1016/j.neucom.2005.12.110
Neurocomputing
Keywords
Field
DocType
song analysis,peak detection,automated boundary,amplitude envelope,average power,segmentation algorithm,song segmentation,song acoustic,zebra finch,human observer,song spectrogram,important component,initial automated segmentation,acoustically distinct segment,zebra finch song,song signal amplitude,note level,quantitative method
Vocal learning,Pattern recognition,Spectrogram,Computer science,Segmentation,Songbird,Algorithm,Speech recognition,Sound energy,Artificial intelligence,Finch,Amplitude
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
69
10-12
Neurocomputing
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.44
0
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ping Du110.44
Todd W Troyer29027.69