Barn owl and sound localization

Abstract

The barn owl is a nocturnal predator with excellent sound localization ability. Due to the asymmetric ears of this bird, the interaural time and level differences, respectively, provide information for the horizontal and vertical direction of a sound source. Forty years of behavioral, anatomical and physiological research on the owl's auditory system have revealed that these two acoustic cues are computed in parallel and hierarchical neural pathways, which converge at the midbrain to form an auditory space map. This neural representation of the acoustic world, calibrated with the visual system, underlies the highly precise sound localization behavior of the barn owl.