Figure - available from: Scientific Reports
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Experimental set-up. (A) Experimental timeline (top) and developmental trajectory of song learning in male zebra finches. Zebra finches were reared by their parents in a room where they could also listen to, but not see, adult male zebra finches other than the father (“neighbors”). At 35–37 dph, when finches are nutritionally independent³⁷, the juveniles were transferred to an operant chamber equipped with keys that were associated with playback of father’s or neighbor’s song. Preference for father’s or neighbor’s song was measured daily while the bird remained in the operant chamber, until 90 dph. This timeline of operant conditioning covers most of the developmental trajectory of song learning. At the beginning of our assay, at 35–37 dph, zebra finches are still in an auditory phase of learning, during which they are known to memorize adult song⁶⁶ and start practicing singing³⁷. Singing rates start increasing by age 50 dph. Approximately at the same time, the finches enter the “plastic song” phase26,27, during which some memorization may still occur but ends by 65 dph⁶⁶. Finally, song crystallization begins by 77 dph and finishes by 90 dph26,37. In the crystallization phase, between 80 and 90 dph, we recorded vocalizations of the juveniles and compared them to father’s and to neighbor’s song. (B) An adult zebra finch presses a key in an operant chamber to elicit playback of conspecific song. The same setup was used with the juveniles in our experiment. Photo by CAR-S. (C) The operant chamber consisted of a 14 × 15 × 17 inch cage, inside which two keys were placed on opposite walls. One key was associated with playback of father’s song and the other with playback of neighbor’s song. Outside the cage, one speaker assigned to each key played the songs. Photo of finch by Lip Kee Yap, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Source publication
In songbirds, learning to sing is a highly social process that likely involves social reward. Here, we tested the hypothesis that during song learning, the reward value of hearing a particular song predicts the degree to which that song will ultimately be learned. We measured the early song preferences of young male zebra finches (Taeniopygia gutta...
Citations
... To investigate this, traditional behavioral paradigms that rely on operant conditioning, such as key-pressing assays [19][20][21] or operant discrimination tasks [22][23][24][25][26] are insufficient. While these methods are valuable for many behavioral studies, they do not require the birds to use their vocalizations, which is essential for studying the flexibility and contextual use of calls. ...
Songbirds are renowned for their complex vocal communication abilities; among them, zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) are a key species for studying vocal learning and communication. Zebra finches use various calls with different meanings, including the distance call, which is used for long-distance contact. Whether these calls are static with fixed meanings or flexible remains an open question. In this study we aimed to answer this question by designing a novel behavioral paradigm, in which we trained food-restricted zebra finches to use distance calls for food request. Nine out of ten birds learned this association and used their distance calls to obtain food when they were hungry. We then introduced a visually-separated audience and compared the distance calls used for food requests with those used for communication between birds. Our analyses revealed significant acoustic differences in power, pitch, and other spectral characteristics between the distance calls uttered in these two contexts, with calls directed at conspecifics exhibiting higher amplitude. Our findings suggest that zebra finches can use their distance call for different goals and also acoustically modulate it based on the context. Therefore, it demonstrates a level of vocal control thought to be exclusive to songs. This study enhances our understanding of vocal flexibility and its role in vocal communication.
... This raises an important question: Are calls fixed in meaning, or can they be adapted for different functions depending on the context? To investigate this, traditional behavioral paradigms that rely on operant conditionings, such as key-pressing assays [16][17][18] or operant discrimination tasks [19][20][21][22][23] are insufficient. While these methods are valuable for many behavioral studies, they do not require the birds to use their vocalizations, which is essential for studying the flexibility and contextual use of calls. ...
Songbirds are renowned for their complex vocal communication abilities; among them, zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata ) are a key species for studying vocal learning and communication. Zebra finches use various calls with different meanings, including the distance call, which is used for long-distance contact. Whether these calls are static with fixed meanings or flexible remains an open question. In this study we aimed to answer this question by designing a novel behavioral paradigm, in which we trained food-restricted zebra finches to use distance calls for food request. Nine out of ten birds learned this association and used their distance calls to obtain food when they were hungry. We then introduced a visually-separated audience and compared the distance calls used for food requests with those used for communication between birds. Results revealed significant acoustic differences in power, pitch, and other spectral characteristics between the distance calls uttered in these two contexts. Our findings suggest that zebra finches can use their distance call for different goals and also acoustically modulate it based on the context. Therefore, it demonstrates a level of vocal control thought to be exclusive to songs. This study enhances our understanding of vocal flexibility and its role in vocal communication.
... This choice is clearly based on social, not genetic, factors, as young birds will copy the song of a foster father even when the biological father can be heard in the same room 7 . Even before they begin to sing, juvenile male zebra finches form strong preferences for the song of their adult male caregiver 8,9 . Young birds will key-press more to hear the song of their chosen tutor than to hear another familiar male, and the magnitude of this preference predicts how well that song will be learned 8 . ...
... Thus, the role of oxytocin in attraction to social cues may be conserved across species and developmental stages. Accordingly, we and others have hypothesized that, in songbirds, oxytocin receptors (OTR) mediate attraction and attention to tutor song, thus facilitating song learning 1,8,[18][19][20][21] . ...
... In the song system, OTR is expressed at higher levels in males than in females 18 . Together, these findings have formed the basis for our hypothesis that OTR facilitates song learning by directing attention to tutors, promoting the formation of social preferences, and guiding the development of selective encoding of tutor song 1,8,18,19 . ...
In species with vocal learning, acquiring species-typical vocalizations relies on early social orienting. In songbirds, for example, learning song requires dynamic social interactions with a “tutor” during an early sensitive period. Here, we hypothesized that the attentional and motivational processes that support song learning recruit the oxytocin system, which is well-understood to play a role in social orienting in other species. Juvenile male zebra finches naïve to song were each tutored by two unfamiliar adult males. Before exposure to one tutor, juveniles were injected subcutaneously with oxytocin receptor antagonist (OTA; ornithine vasotocin) and before exposure to the other, saline (control). Treatment with OTA reduced behaviors associated with approach and attention during tutoring sessions. Using a novel operant paradigm to measure preference while balancing exposure to the two tutor songs, we showed that the juveniles preferred to hear the song of the control tutor. Their adult songs more closely resembled the control tutor’s song, and the magnitude of this difference was predicted by early preference for control over OTA song. Overall, oxytocin antagonism during exposure to a tutor seemed to bias juveniles against that tutor and his song. Our results suggest that oxytocin receptors are important for socially-guided vocal learning.
... Page 3/30 notes are grouped to form "syllables," and sequences of syllables form song [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Quantitative studies of estrildid song have largely focused on one or two species [13,[37][38][39][40][43][44][45]47], and either composite measures [48][49][50][51] or individual features, such as fundamental frequency [52,53]. ...
Birdsong is a longstanding model system for studying evolution, and has recently emerged as a measure of biodiversity loss due to deforestation and climate change. Here, we collected and analyzed high quality song recordings from seven species in the family Estrildidae . We measured the acoustic features of syllables and then used dimensionality reduction and machine learning classifiers to identify features that accurately assigned syllables to species. Species differences were captured by the first 3 principal components, corresponding to basic spectral features, spectral shape, and spectrotemporal features. We then identified the measured features underlying classification accuracy. We found that fundamental frequency, mean frequency, spectral flatness, and syllable duration were the most informative features for species identification. Next, we tested whether specific acoustic features of species’ songs predicted phylogenetic distance. We found significant phylogenetic signal in syllable spectral features, but not in spectral shape or spectrotemporal features. Results indicate that spectral features are more constrained by species’ genetics than are other features, and are the best signal features for identifying species from song recordings. The absence of phylogenetic signal in spectral shape and spectrotemporal features suggests that these song features are labile, reflecting learning-processes and individual recognition.
One of the most important challenges for a developing infant is learning how best to allocate their attention and forage for information in the midst of a great deal of novel stimulation. We propose that infants of altricial species solve this challenge by learning selectively from events that are contingent on their immature behavior, such as babbling. Such a contingency filter would focus attention and learning on the behavior of social partners, because social behavior reliably fits infants' sensitivity to contingency. In this way a contingent response by a caregiver to an immature behavior becomes a source of learnable information - feedback - to the infant. Social interactions with responsive caregivers afford infants opportunities to explore the impacts of their immature behavior on their environment, which facilitates the development of socially guided learning. Furthermore, contingent interactions are opportunities to make and test predictions about the efficacy of their social behaviors and those of others. In this chapter, we will use prelinguistic vocal learning to exemplify how infants use their developing vocal abilities to elicit learnable information about language from their social partners. Specifically, we review how caregivers' contingent responses to babbling create information that facilitates infant vocal learning and drives the development of communication. Infants play an active role in this process, as their developing predictions about the consequences of their actions serve to further refine their allocation of attention and drive increases in the maturity of their vocal behavior.
Birdsong is a longstanding model system for studying evolution and biodiversity. Here, we collected and analyzed high quality song recordings from seven species in the family Estrildidae . We measured the acoustic features of syllables and then used dimensionality reduction and machine learning classifiers to identify features that accurately assigned syllables to species. Species differences were captured by the first 3 principal components, corresponding to basic frequency, power distribution, and spectrotemporal features. We then identified the measured features underlying classification accuracy. We found that fundamental frequency, mean frequency, spectral flatness, and syllable duration were the most informative features for species identification. Next, we tested whether specific acoustic features of species’ songs predicted phylogenetic distance. We found significant phylogenetic signal in syllable frequency features, but not in power distribution or spectrotemporal features. Results suggest that frequency features are more constrained by species’ genetics than are other features, and are the best signal features for identifying species from song recordings. The absence of phylogenetic signal in power distribution and spectrotemporal features suggests that these song features are labile, reflecting learning processes and individual recognition.
