Neural lateralization of vocal control in a passerine bird. II. Subsong, calls, and a theory of vocal learning

The social environment plays an important role in vocal development. In songbirds, social interactions that promote vocal learning are often characterized by contingent responses of adults to early, immature vocalizations. Parallel processes have been discovered in the early speech development of human infants. Why does contingent social feedback facilitate vocal learning so effectively? Answers may be found by connecting the neural mechanisms of vocal learning and control with those involved in processing social reward. This chapter extends the idea of Newman’s social behaviour network, a tightly interconnected system of limbic areas across which social behaviour and motivation are distributed, to an avian social/vocal control network. It explores anatomical and functional overlaps between song circuitry and social-motivational circuitry, describing how circuitry linking basal ganglia with cortical areas serves to integrate social reward with vocal control and may underlie socially guided vocal learning. In species that have evolved socially guided vocal learning, a unique link has been forgedbetween social circuitry and vocal learning systems, such that learning is driven by social motivation.

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Neural lateralization of vocal control in a passerine bird. I. Song

Journal of Experimental Zoology ◽

10.1002/jez.1401770210 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 177 (2) ◽

pp. 229-261 ◽

Cited By ~ 245

Author(s):

Fernando Nottebohm

Keyword(s):

Passerine Bird ◽

Vocal Control

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Songbirds can learn flexible contextual control over syllable sequencing

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.61610 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

Author(s):

Lena Veit ◽

Lucas Y Tian ◽

Christian J Monroy Hernandez ◽

Michael S Brainard

Keyword(s):

Visual Cues ◽

Vocal Learning ◽

Fundamental Aspect ◽

Contextual Control ◽

Contextual Cues ◽

Flexible Control ◽

External Reinforcement ◽

Vocal Control ◽

Moment Control ◽

Specific Sequences

The flexible control of sequential behavior is a fundamental aspect of speech, enabling endless reordering of a limited set of learned vocal elements (syllables or words). Songbirds are phylogenetically distant from humans but share both the capacity for vocal learning and neural circuitry for vocal control that includes direct pallial-brainstem projections. Based on these similarities, we hypothesized that songbirds might likewise be able to learn flexible, moment-by-moment control over vocalizations. Here, we demonstrate that Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica), which sing variable syllable sequences, can learn to rapidly modify the probability of specific sequences (e.g. ‘ab-c’ versus ‘ab-d’) in response to arbitrary visual cues. Moreover, once learned, this modulation of sequencing occurs immediately following changes in contextual cues and persists without external reinforcement. Our findings reveal a capacity in songbirds for learned contextual control over syllable sequencing that parallels human cognitive control over syllable sequencing in speech.

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Ambient noise from ocean surf drives frequency shifts in non-passerine bird song

10.1101/2020.06.17.156232 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Matteo Sebastianelli ◽

Daniel T. Blumstein ◽

Alexander N. G. Kirschel

Keyword(s):

Background Noise ◽

Ambient Noise ◽

Selective Pressure ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Vocal Learning ◽

Passerine Bird ◽

Anthropogenic Noise ◽

Masking Effect ◽

Frequency Noise ◽

Natural Noise

AbstractEffective communication in birds is often hampered by background noise, with many recent studies focusing on the effect of anthropogenic noise on passerine bird song. Continuous low-frequency natural noise is predicted to drive changes in both frequency and temporal patterning of bird vocalizations, but the extent to which these effects may also affect birds that lack vocal learning is not yet fully understood. Here we use a gradient of exposure to natural low-frequency noise to assess whether it exerts selective pressure on vocalizations in a species whose songs are innate. We tested whether three species of Pogoniulus tinkerbirds adapt their song when exposed to a source of continuous low-frequency noise from ocean surf. We show that dominant frequency increases the closer birds are to the coast in all the three species, and in line with higher noise levels, indicating that ocean surf sound may apply a selective pressure on tinkerbird songs. As a consequence, tinkerbirds adapt their songs with an increase in frequency to avoid the masking effect due to overlapping frequencies with ambient noise, therefore improving long-range communication with intended receivers. Our study provides for the first time, compelling evidence that natural ambient noise affects vocalizations in birds whose songs are developed innately. We believe that our results can also be extrapolated in the context of anthropogenic noise pollution, hence providing a baseline for the study of the effects of low-frequency ambient noise on birds that lack vocal learning.Significance StatementBirdsong is constantly under selection as it mediates key interactions such as mate attraction, competition with same-sex individuals for reproduction and competition with heterospecifics for space-related resources. Any phenomenon that interferes with communication can therefore have a profound impact on individual fitness. Passerines are more likely to avoid the masking effect of background noise because of their higher vocal flexibility. Many non-passerine species lacking such flexibility might therefore be more vulnerable to the negative effects on their fitness of exposure to low-frequency background noise. Species incapable of adapting their signals to background noise are predicted to disappear from noisy areas. Despite this, we show that species that lack song learning may show an adaptive response to natural noise which may develop over evolutionary timescales.

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A Call to Expand Avian Vocal Development Research

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.3389/fevo.2021.757972 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Yen Yi Loo ◽

Kristal E. Cain

Keyword(s):

Life Histories ◽

Continuum Hypothesis ◽

Vocal Learning ◽

Neural Substrates ◽

Learning Ability ◽

Development Studies ◽

Vocal Development ◽

Vocal Production ◽

Development Patterns ◽

Vocal Control

Birds are our best models to understand vocal learning – a vocal production ability guided by auditory feedback, which includes human language. Among all vocal learners, songbirds have the most diverse life histories, and some aspects of their vocal learning ability are well-known, such as the neural substrates and vocal control centers, through vocal development studies. Currently, species are classified as either vocal learners or non-learners, and a key difference between the two is the development period, extended in learners, but short in non-learners. But this clear dichotomy has been challenged by the vocal learning continuum hypothesis. One way to address this challenge is to examine both learners and canonical non-learners and determine whether their vocal development is dichotomous or falls along a continuum. However, when we examined the existing empirical data we found that surprisingly few species have their vocal development periods documented. Furthermore, we identified multiple biases within previous vocal development studies in birds, including an extremely narrow focus on (1) a few model species, (2) oscines, (3) males, and (4) songs. Consequently, these biases may have led to an incomplete and possibly erroneous conclusions regarding the nature of the relationships between vocal development patterns and vocal learning ability. Diversifying vocal development studies to include a broader range of taxa is urgently needed to advance the field of vocal learning and examine how vocal development patterns might inform our understanding of vocal learning.

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Song learning in birds: the relation between perception and production

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.1990.0156 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 329 (1253) ◽

pp. 115-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 94

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Adult Neurogenesis ◽

Vocal Learning ◽

Song Learning ◽

Direct Pathway ◽

Vocal Control ◽

Vocal System ◽

Neuronal Replacement

The vocal control system of oscine songbirds has some perplexing properties - e.g. laterality, adult neurogenesis, neuronal replacement — that are not predicted by common views of how vocal learning takes place. Similarly, we do not understand the relation between the direct pathway for the control of learned song and the recursive pathway necessary for song learning. Some of the paradoxes of the vocal system of birds may disappear once the relation between the perception and production of learned vocalizations is better understood. To some extent, perception and production may be two closely related states of a same system.

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