Although rats are known to emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), it remains unclear whether these calls serve an auditory communication purpose. For USVs to be part of communication, the vocal signals will need to be a transfer of information between two or more conspecifics, and with the possibility to induce changes in the behavior of the recipient. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate the role of USVs in adult rats’ social and non-social investigation strategies when introduced into a large novel environment with unfamiliar conspecifics. We quantified a wide range of social and non-social behaviors in the seminatural environment, which could be affected by subtle signals, including USVs. We found that during the first hour in the seminatural environment the ability to vocalize did not affect how quickly adult rats met each other, their overall social investigation behavior, their passive social behavior nor their aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the non-social exploratory behaviors and behaviors reflecting anxiety/stress-like states were also unaffected. These results demonstrated that a disability to vocalize did not result in significant disadvantages (or changes) compared to intact conspecifics regarding social and non-social behaviors. This suggests that other (multi)sensory cues are more relevant in social interactions than USVs.

尽管已知老鼠会发出超声波发声（USV），但仍不清楚这些呼叫是否起到听觉交流的作用。为了使USV成为交流的一部分，语音信号将需要在两个或多个特定对象之间传递信息，并有可能诱发接收者行为的变化。因此，我们的研究目的是研究将USV引入具有陌生物种的大型新型环境中后，在成年大鼠的社会和非社会调查策略中的作用。我们对半自然环境中的各种社会和非社会行为进行了量化，这些行为可能会受到包括USV在内的微妙信号的影响。我们发现，在半自然环境中的第一个小时，发声的能力不会影响成年大鼠彼此相遇的速度，他们的整体社会调查行为，他们的消极社会行为或他们的侵略行为。此外，非社会探索行为和反映焦虑/类似压力状态的行为也未受影响。这些结果表明，与完整的关于社会行为和非社会行为的特定概念相比，表达声音的障碍不会导致明显的不利（或改变）。这表明，其他（多）感官提示在社交互动中比USV更重要。这些结果表明，与完整的关于社会行为和非社会行为的特定概念相比，表达声音的障碍不会导致明显的不利（或改变）。这表明，其他（多）感官提示在社交互动中比USV更重要。这些结果表明，与完整的关于社会行为和非社会行为的特定概念相比，表达声音的障碍不会导致明显的不利（或改变）。这表明，其他（多）感官提示在社交互动中比USV更重要。