Bats and dolphins echolocate ultrasonically while foraging, an active mode of perception that is effective for intercepting small, fast-moving targets, but less so for tracking large targets from long distances. Unlike toothed whales, humpback whales and other baleen whales are widely assumed not to echolocate. Echoes generated by humpback whale vocalizations often have been viewed either as low-level background noise that minimally affects acoustic communication between whales or as indirect cues to large environmental features. An additional possibility is that vocalizing humpback whales (and perhaps other whales) produce sonic sounds to actively generate echoes that they localize and interpret. Animals attempting to echolocate using lower frequency sounds underwater face some of the same signal processing challenges faced by ultrasonic echolocators, as well as some unique challenges. The extent to which listening whales can meet these challenges largely determines what they can actively perceive by monitoring self-generated echoes. In the absence of psychophysical experiments with baleen whales, comparisons with auditory processing by echolocating species provide the best indications of what humpback whales may echoically perceive. Empirical tests of key predictions derived from the hypothesis that humpback whales echolocate are also critical to understanding how they use sound. Recognizing that sonic echolocation by whales may differ substantially from ultrasonic echolocation in smaller species is an important step toward clarifying the role that active auditory perception plays in whale behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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座头鲸（Megaptera novaeangliae）声纳：十个预测。

蝙蝠和海豚在觅食时以超声波回声定位，这是一种主动的感知模式，对拦截快速移动的小目标有效，但对远距离跟踪大目标则有效。与带齿鲸鱼不同，普遍认为座头鲸和其他鲸鱼不会回声。座头鲸发声所产生的回声通常被看作是最低限度的背景噪声，对鲸鱼之间的声音交流影响最小，或者被视为对大型环境特征的间接提示。另一种可能性是，给座头鲸（也许还有其他鲸）发声会产生声音，以主动产生它们定位和解释的回声。试图在水下使用低频声音进行回声定位的动物面临着超声波回声定位器面临的一些相同的信号处理挑战，以及一些独特的挑战。鲸鱼能够应对这些挑战的程度在很大程度上决定了它们可以通过监视自身产生的回声来主动感知到什么。在没有使用鲸鱼进行心理物理实验的情况下，与通过回声定位物种进行听觉处理的比较可以最好地表明座头鲸可能会回声地感知到什么。对座头鲸回声定位的假设得出的关键预测的经验检验对于理解它们如何使用声音也至关重要。认识到在较小的物种中鲸鱼的声音回声定位可能与超声回声定位有很大不同，这是澄清主动听觉在鲸鱼行为中所起作用的重要一步。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。