Comment on 'Ear Deformations Give Bats a Physical Mechanism for Fast Adaptation of Ultrasonic Beam Patterns'

摘要

Gao et al.[1] conclude that horseshoe bats could use nonrigid ear deformations to switch between functionally different head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). We argue that, while it is possible that the ear deformations introduce additional directional cues relevant to the bat, the presented evidence is insufficient to support this conclusion. First, the coordinate system of the HRTFs is not referred to a behaviorally relevant coordinate system fixed to the bat's head. Second, as sonar is an active sense, the spatial sensitivity of the system cannot be determined by analyzing the HRTF only [2-4].