Glossary beginning with P

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P

pars stridens

The file portion of the stridulatory device. The plectrum is moved along the file to produce sound.

partes stridentes

see pars stridens 

partial

"a pure-tone component of a complex tone." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
period

"(1) acoustics: of a periodic quantity: the smallest time-unit for which the quantity repeats itself. By extension, the term period is applied eben when successive cycles of oscillation are not identical. The extension means taht the term is applied to the time elapsing between corresponding points of two successive members of a series of more or less irregularly periodic sounds. In the last resort, as irregualrities increase, the only corresponding points will be the beginnings, hence the ultimate permissable extension of the term for bio-acoustic purposes: lapse of time between two successive homologous members of a series of emissions measured from the beginiing of one to the beginning of the other. Clearly, however, the concept of period has no meaning outside of a repetitive context, and for the definition just igven to habe any meaning it is necessary to take a mean of the time-lapses between successive members in the whole series, or in a fair sample of it.

(2) music, applied to ornithology by Sotavalta: the smallest indepedant unit of expression: a unit of higher order than the sentence, consisting of one or several sentences which describe the whole expression. Periods are generally coordinated, and separated from each other by a silent interval. A period can be an exact repetition of the preceding period, or be differnet form it; though it often has a simialr structure." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
periodic quantity

"an oscillatory quantity whose values recur for certain equal increments of time." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
periodicity

"neutal term for any count per unit time of a recurrent sound. If frequency be limited in use to spectral components only, periodicty becomes a useful term for all oteh repetion rates." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phase

"the particular point in the cycle that a sinusoidal quantity has reached at the instant of investigation." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phase difference

"(1) between two instantaneous values of the same sinusoidal quantity: the fraction of the whole period that elapses between their occurrence. 

(2) betwen two sinusoidal quantities having the same frequency: the fraction of the whole period taht elapses between the occurence of an instantaneous value of one and the instantaneous value of the other at the corresponding point of the cycle. By antural extension, the concepts of both phase and phase difference are applied to non-sinusoidal periodic quantities, even such as the left and right leg movements in locomotion or stridulation. These are symphasic, or in phase, when there is no phase difference, and the legs are moving in perfect unison; and antiphasic, or fully out of phase, when the phase difference is half a period and the legs are moving in exact anithesis." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phon

" a psycho-acoustic of equivalent loudness, the need for which arises from the different sensitivity of the ear to differnet frequencies. The loudless level in phons of a pure tone is the intensity (in dB above reference level) of a pure tone 1000c/s pure tone asessed (as the modal value of judments by 'normal' observers) as being equally loud." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phonation

"a common definition is the production of sound by voice; which presenst few difficulties if discussion is limited to the higher vertebrates. It will be clear, however, from study of this treatise, that there are many other machanisms in the animal kingdom where vibrating membranes cooperate with resonance cavities of some sort to produce what are essentially vocalized osunds in a manner essentially analogous to taht of teh vertebrate larynx and its accessories. There is therefore no real reason for limiting the use of the term to mechanisms of the higher vertebrate type. Nevertheless, in deference to common practice, and perhaps common sense, references to what is commonly accepted as vocal production have been enetered under phoantion, while other mechanisms have on the whole been entered under sound production, stridulation, or strigilation. Some overlapping is inevitable." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phone

"umbrella term for a simple vowel or consonant sound." [1]

References

  1. Broughton WB. Glossarial Index. In: Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Acoustic Behavior of Animals. Elsevier; 1963.
phonoreception

Term propsed by Beer et al 1899 [1] to replace hearing to "eliminate from the study of invertebrate behaviour all reference to human experience" [2].

"This proposal largely failed of its object. On the one hand, it was ignored by the majority of naturalists and morphologists. On the other, where it was adopted by the experimentalists, they often took over the new terms, but used them merelyassynonymsfor the old. The languagewas new, but the meaning was the same, and the core of the problem remained untouched. This problem, restated with reference to the subject of this review, is briefly the problem of defining the nature of the evidence which will justify the attribution of a sense of hearing to animals which differ radically from man in their organization and into whose 'minds', if such exist, we have in the nature of things no opportunity of seeing." [2]

"It has in no way cleared up the muddle which inevitably arises when a human observer endeavours to distinguish between phonic and tactile senses in an animal on the basis of his own sensory experience.This confusion is apparent right through the literature up to the present time." [2]

References

  1. Beer T, Bethe A, von Uexküll J. Vorschläge zu einer objektivierenden Nomenklatur in der Physiologie des Nervensystems. A. Georgi; 1899.
  2. Pumphrey RJ. Hearing in Insects. Biological Reviews. 1940;15(1):107 - 132. Available at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/brv/15/1.
phonotaxis

"Directional movement in response to sound." [1]

References

  1. Ragge DR, Reynolds WJ. The Songs of the Grasshoppers and Crickets of Western Europe. Colchester, Essex: Harley Books; 1998.
phonotaxonomy

"The taxonomy of animals as indicated by the sounds they produce." [1]

References

  1. Ragge DR, Reynolds WJ. The Songs of the Grasshoppers and Crickets of Western Europe. Colchester, Essex: Harley Books; 1998.
Phrase

See Echeme

plangent

loud and resonant, with a mournful tone

plectrum

Part of the stridulatory apparatus that is moved along the file (pars stridens) to produce a sound.

"A scraper on the fore wing of a bush-cricket, true cricket or mole-cricket, which is rubbed againbst a file on the other ofre wing during singing. [1]

References

  1. Ragge DR, Reynolds WJ. The Songs of the Grasshoppers and Crickets of Western Europe. Colchester, Essex: Harley Books; 1998.
polar plot

"A diagram drawin in polar coordinates to show the contours of equal energy surrounding either an emitter or reciever. Used, for example, to illustrate directionality of acoustic receptors." [1]

References

  1. Ewing AW. Arthropod Bioacoustics: Neurobiology and Behaviour. Ithaca, New York: Comstock; 1989.
power spectrum

"Any complex waveform is composed of discrete sine waves in harmonic series. Fourier analysis is one method of analysing a sound to provide such a series, and a power spectrum is the result of such an analysis where the energy ine ach of teh harmonic components is usually displayed graphically." [1]

References

  1. Ewing AW. Arthropod Bioacoustics: Neurobiology and Behaviour. Ithaca, New York: Comstock; 1989.
pulse

"A unitary sound normally produced bya  single movement of the sound-producing apparatus. It may be monocyclic, as in the osund produced by the wing of some Drosophila species, or polycyclic as in the closing stridulatory wing stroke of crickets." [1]

References

  1. Ewing AW. Arthropod Bioacoustics: Neurobiology and Behaviour. Ithaca, New York: Comstock; 1989.

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Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith