Replication Data for: Rearing condition affects behavioral response to cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm in zebra finches

In this study, we tested female zebra finches for responses to audio and visual stimuli from a male mate or a stranger in a digital cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm. Females were either reared with parents and siblings in a colony (‘normally-reared’) or reared with mothers and siblings in a sound attenuating chamber (‘experience-limited’). Birds from both rearing conditions were then partnered with a male bird for two weeks and tested in a digital cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm.

We recorded the movements of each bird during a 30 second pre-stimulus period, then during 30 seconds of video playback followed by 30 seconds of audio playback (with the video screen off). Audio and video were either congruent (audio and video from the same male) or incongruent (audio and video from different males). Using automated pose tracking, we determined that, like many species, zebra finches react differently when the stimuli are. However, while birds reared in a colony setting and birds reared without exposure to adult song both detected audiovisual congruency, the degree of behaviors exhibited differed between the rearing conditions. Thus, multisensory integration appears to be important for females to identify their mates, but differences in developmental environment influence how recognition is behaviorally expressed.

The dataset includes the processed data used in our statistical analyses (performed in JMP) as well as the code and raw data that were used to generate the processed data. The raw data is organized by bird and includes all of the x and y coordinate positions for the beak tip, head, and back during the pre-stimulus, video playback, and audio playback periods (30 seconds each, 1800 frames at 60 fps) for all stimulus combinations (mate congruent; unfamiliar congruent; incongruent mate audio, unfamiliar video; incongruent unfamiliar audio, mate video). These data are included as excel files containing all data for each bird as tabs within the file and as CSV files (each CSV file is one time point for one condition for each bird). README.txt files are available to provide information on the specific measures and data organization.