1. A method for characterizing a sonar signal captured by sonar listening devices, the method comprising the steps of: (1) characterizing a spectrogram generated from a sonar signal in terms of textural features and signal processing parameters; (2) inputting to a plurality of trained neural networks said textural features and said signal processing parameters of said spectrogram, wherein each of said plurality of trained neural networks is trained to favor a different subset of said textural features and said signal processing parameters; and (3) classifying components of said sonar signal as characteristic texture or clutter using said trained neural network.