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Main Authors: Scott, K. Jack, Speers, Lucinda J., Bilkey, David K.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.03183
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author Scott, K. Jack
Speers, Lucinda J.
Bilkey, David K.
author_facet Scott, K. Jack
Speers, Lucinda J.
Bilkey, David K.
contents Murine rodents generate ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) with frequencies that extend to around 120kHz. These calls are important in social behaviour, and so their analysis can provide insights into the function of vocal communication, and its dysfunction. The manual identification of USVs, and subsequent classification into different subcategories is time consuming. Although machine learning approaches for identification and classification can lead to enormous efficiency gains, the time and effort required to generate training data can be high, and the accuracy of current approaches can be problematic. Here we compare the detection and classification performance of a trained human against two convolutional neural networks (CNNs), DeepSqueak and VocalMat, on audio containing rat USVs. Furthermore, we test the effect of inserting synthetic USVs into the training data of the VocalMat CNN as a means of reducing the workload associated with generating a training set. Our results indicate that VocalMat outperformed the DeepSqueak CNN on measures of call identification, and classification. Additionally, we found that the augmentation of training data with synthetic images resulted in a further improvement in accuracy, such that it was sufficiently close to human performance to allow for the use of this software in laboratory conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_03183
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Utilizing synthetic training data for the supervised classification of rat ultrasonic vocalizations
Scott, K. Jack
Speers, Lucinda J.
Bilkey, David K.
Sound
Machine Learning
Audio and Speech Processing
Murine rodents generate ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) with frequencies that extend to around 120kHz. These calls are important in social behaviour, and so their analysis can provide insights into the function of vocal communication, and its dysfunction. The manual identification of USVs, and subsequent classification into different subcategories is time consuming. Although machine learning approaches for identification and classification can lead to enormous efficiency gains, the time and effort required to generate training data can be high, and the accuracy of current approaches can be problematic. Here we compare the detection and classification performance of a trained human against two convolutional neural networks (CNNs), DeepSqueak and VocalMat, on audio containing rat USVs. Furthermore, we test the effect of inserting synthetic USVs into the training data of the VocalMat CNN as a means of reducing the workload associated with generating a training set. Our results indicate that VocalMat outperformed the DeepSqueak CNN on measures of call identification, and classification. Additionally, we found that the augmentation of training data with synthetic images resulted in a further improvement in accuracy, such that it was sufficiently close to human performance to allow for the use of this software in laboratory conditions.
title Utilizing synthetic training data for the supervised classification of rat ultrasonic vocalizations
topic Sound
Machine Learning
Audio and Speech Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.03183