Rearing condition affects behavioral response to cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm in zebra finches

Interacting in a multimodal world, including recognizing other individuals across multiple sensory modalities, is important for animals who rely on social relationships for survival. Social and sensory experiences shape how multisensory information is processed and integrated; however, we have less understanding of how multimodal recognition may be modulated by early sensory experience in a single modality. Zebra finches are gregarious songbirds that form lifelong pair-bonds with a single partner whom they recognize acoustically and visually. However, it is unknown to what extent multisensory signals might interact to enable recognition or whether this is affected by auditory exposure during development. In this paper, we tested females for responses to audio and visual stimuli from their mate or a stranger in a digital cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm. Using automated pose tracking, we determined that, like many species, zebra finches react differently when the stimuli are congruent versus incongruent. 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.