State and Context in Vocal Communication of Rodents

Abstract

Context adds meaning to vocal communication. For an individual that is encountering conspecifics, sensitivity to factors such as the identity of a social partner and presence of eavesdroppers (the external scene) or reproductive state and experience (the internal scene) may be essential for effective communication. Although the external and internal scenes are often categorized as separate, they are functionally entangled because they often interact to influence communication and they converge at the physiological level. The external and internal scenes have well-documented effects on both vocal production by signalers and the responses to vocal signals by receivers. This commonality supports a view of context as an emergent phenomenon with individuals acting as both senders and receivers during a communication event and contributing to the tone of the interaction via feedback to social partners. Amid this complexity, an operational view defines context as the set of factors that influences communication within a given interaction. This definition can be used as a simplifying tool for exploring both the functions and mechanisms of context sensitivity. Since both the external and internal scenes affect physiological systems involved in the internal representations of qualities such as stress, reward, and positive or negative valence, an integrated concept of context also unites ecological and biomedical perspectives.