[Marmam] publication on N. Pacific right whale call detection

[Lisa Munger]

Munger, L., D.K. Mellinger, S.M. Wiggins, S.E. Moore, and J.A. 
Hildebrand.  2005.  Performance of spectrogram correlation in detecting 
right whale calls in long-term recordings from the Bering Sea.  Canadian 
Acoustics 33 (2): 25-34.


ABSTRACT
We investigated the performance of spectrogram cross-correlation for 
automatically detecting North Pacific
right whale (Eubalaena japonica) calls in long-term acoustic recordings 
from the southeastern Bering Sea.
Data were sampled by autonomous, bottom-mounted hydrophones deployed in the 
southeastern Bering Sea
from October 2000 through August 2002. A human analyst detected right whale 
calls within the first month
(October 2000) of recorded data by visually examining spectrograms and by 
listening to recorded data;
these manual detections were then compared to results of automated 
detection trials. Automated detection
by spectrogram cross-correlation was implemented using a synthetic kernel 
based on the most common
right whale call type. To optimize automated detection parameters, the 
analyst performed multiple trials on
minutes-long and hour-long recordings and manually adjusted detection 
parameters between trials. A single
set of optimized detection parameters was used to process a week-long 
recording from October 2000. The
automated detector trials resulted in increasing proportions of false and 
missed detections with increasing data
set duration, due to the higher proportion of acoustic noise and lower 
overall call rates in longer recordings.
However, the automated detector missed only one calling "bout" (2 or more 
calls within a 10-minute span)
of the 18 bouts present in the week-long recording. Despite the high number 
of false detections and missed
individual calls, spectrogram cross-correlation was useful to guide a human 
analyst to sections of data with
potential right whale calling bouts. Upon reviewing automatic detection 
events, the analyst could quickly
dismiss false detections and search recordings before and after correct 
detections to find missed calls, thus
improving the efficiency of searching for a small number of calls in 
long-term (months- to years-long)
recordings.

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Please address any inquiries to lmunger at ucsd.edu.

Thanks,
Lisa Munger
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0205
(858)534-5755

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Biological Oceanography
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