Temporal auditory summation in the echolocating bat, Tadarida brasiliensis.

Auditory thresholds improve with increasing signal duration within the maximum integration time of the auditory system, a phenomenon called temporal summation. The temporal summation function is a basic characteristic of particular relevance for bat sonar, as it determines the ability to detect targets with short echolocation calls. Temporal summation was studied in 6 Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) in a forced two-choice behavioural test. Masked auditory thresholds for 40-kHz test tone pulses with durations between 2 ms and 400 ms were determined in broadband noise of two different spectrum levels (-18 dB, +17 dB). At both masker levels, thresholds decreased by considerably more than 10 dB per decade of duration. The time constants of the summation functions, which are a measure of the maximum integration time, shortened significantly with increasing masker level from 62 ms to 14 ms. The steep summation functions are only partly accounted for by spectral splatter. This suggests that the bats are capable of a neural overintegration of sound intensity. Finally, it is shown that such short time constants are typical for echolocating animals, and the implications of the found summation functions for echolocation are considered.