Arginine vasotocin (AVT) and its homolog arginine vasopressin (AVP) modulate social behavior, including social communication. In anuran amphibians, male-male competition and female mate choice rely heavily on acoustic signaling. Behavioral experiments show that AVT influences motivation to call and vocal production. It may also influence how males process and respond to socially relevant auditory stimuli, but few studies have explored this possibility in this taxon. Túngara frogs produce a “whine” that is used for species recognition; in competition with other males they append one or more attractive “chucks” to the whine. Frequency modulation in the whine is an important cue for recognizing conspecifics, and gating of conspecific signals begins in the auditory midbrain. We used dynamic playback experiments to investigate the effects of exogenous AVT on males' responses to stimuli with species-typical and altered frequency modulation. We used avoidance of call overlap as evidence that a male recognizes a stimulus as salient and the production of attractive chucks as evidence of his competitive response to a proximate rival. We used call rate, whine duration, and whine frequency as measures of motivation and motor production. Males responded selectively to a stimulus with species-typical frequency modulation. Following treatment with AVT, they increased call rate and altered whines and chucks in a way that suggests increased air flow during the whine. We did not, however, find evidence that treatment with AVT alters the salience of frequency modulation in recognizing and responding to acoustic signals, at least for the stimuli used in this study.

精氨酸加压素 (AVT) 及其同系物精氨酸加压素 (AVP) 调节社会行为，包括社会交流。在无尾两栖动物中，雄性竞争和雌性配偶的选择在很大程度上依赖于声音信号。行为实验表明，AVT 会影响呼叫和发声的动机。它也可能影响雄性如何处理和响应与社会相关的听觉刺激，但很少有研究在这个分类群中探索这种可能性。Túngara 青蛙会发出一种用于物种识别的“呜呜声”；在与其他雄性的竞争中，它们会在呜呜声中附加一个或多个有吸引力的“夹头”。呜呜声中的频率调制是识别同种的重要线索，同种信号的门控始于听觉中脑。我们使用动态回放实验来研究外源性 AVT 对雄性对物种典型和改变频率调制的刺激反应的影响。我们使用避免呼叫重叠作为雄性将刺激识别为显着的证据，并使用有吸引力的夹头作为他对邻近竞争对手的竞争反应的证据。我们使用呼叫率、呜呜声持续时间和呜呜声频率作为动机和运动产生的量度。雄性有选择地对具有物种典型频率调制的刺激做出反应。用 AVT 治疗后，他们增加了呼叫率并改变了呜呜声和夹头，这表明在呜呜声期间增加了气流。然而，我们没有发现证据表明 AVT 治疗会改变频率调制在识别和响应声学信号方面的显着性，