Classification of large acoustic datasets using machine learning and crowdsourcing: Application to whale calls
- 1 February 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Acoustical Society of America (ASA) in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Vol. 135 (2), 953-962
- https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4861348
Abstract
A.M.v.B.B. acknowledges support from the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews (Professor Ian Boyd) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the Whale FM project. P.T. received funding from the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS).Vocal communication is a primary communication method of killer and pilot whales, and is used for transmitting a broad range of messages and information for short and long distance. The large variation in call types of these species makes it challenging to categorize them. In this study, sounds recorded by audio sensors carried by ten killer whales and eight pilot whales close to the coasts of Norway, Iceland, and the Bahamas were analyzed using computer methods and citizen scientists as part of the Whale FM project. Results show that the computer analysis automatically separated the killer whales into Icelandic and Norwegian whales, and the pilot whales were separated into Norwegian long-finned and Bahamas short-finned pilot whales, showing that at least some whales from these two locations have different acoustic repertoires that can be sensed by the computer analysis. The citizen science analysis was also able to separate the whales to locations by their sounds, but the separation was somewhat less accurate compared to the computer method.Publisher PDFPeer revieweKeywords
This publication has 39 references indexed in Scilit:
- Pattern Recognition Software and Techniques for Biological Image AnalysisPLoS Computational Biology, 2010
- Killer whales (Orcinus orca) produce ultrasonic whistlesThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2010
- Automatic morphological classification of galaxy imagesMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2009
- Biometric identification using knee X-raysInternational Journal of Biometrics, 2009
- IICBU 2008: a proposed benchmark suite for biological image analysisMedical & Biological Engineering & Computing, 2008
- Wndchrm – an open source utility for biological image analysisSource Code for Biology and Medicine, 2008
- The influence of social affiliation on individual vocal signatures of northern resident killer whales ( Orcinus orca )Biology Letters, 2006
- Behavioural evidence for social units in long-finned pilot whalesCanadian Journal of Zoology, 2003
- Analyzing and modeling fractal intensity point processesThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1993
- Texture features for classification of ultrasonic liver imagesIEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 1992