![]() ![]() Both male and female zebra finches produce about 10 different types of calls. In addition to song, zebra finches also use many other vocalisations which are not learned. Zebra finches mate for life, and the male uses his song to attract a female. These syllables are repeated in a fixed order to make up an entire song. ![]() Zebra finch songs are made up of only 3 to 8 of distinct notes, or syllables, which are short, buzzy sound bursts with a distinctive structure. For these males, there is a short window during which juvenile birds learn by imitating their father. Young males have to practice for months in order to learn how to produce a song, which they largely copy from their father. In this Australian bird, only males can sing. This work may have important implications for our understanding of the evolution and unique structure of human language.Īs one model, Dr Dooling and his team used Zebra finches or, to use their scientific name, Taeniopygia guttata. Together they have worked on problems from the brain mechanisms underlying vocal production to perceptual specialisations for perceiving species-specific song to the coding of meaning in sound sequences. The team in the Ball-Dooling Laboratory are experts in Behavioural Ecology, Linguistics, Psychoacoustics, and Neuroendocrinology. More recent studies have shown how, just like babies, young birds can learn a series of sounds and then use them in their adult life to communicate with other birds.ĭespite this progress, how exactly birds ‘talk’ to other birds to convey important information is still a mystery – one that Dr Robert Dooling and his team from the University of Maryland, USA, are keen to unravel. Even Aristotle in his “History of animals” noticed that in addition to learning a song from their parents, young birds can also modify the original and create a new song. Researchers have been curious about birdsong for a very long time not only from a physiological point of view about how birds can produce and recognise such sounds, but also what similarities – if any – birdsong shares with human speech. ![]() In this episode we will be looking at the work of Dr Robert Dooling and his team, based at the University of Maryland in the US, who study the acoustic elements of zebra finch songs and their implications for human speech and language. Thank you for listening and joining us today. How exactly do birds ‘talk’ to one another? And might research into how birds listen to birdsong help us understand communication both in humans and birds?ĭr Robert Dooling and his team, based at the University of Maryland, USA, showed that – for zebra finches at least – the subtle nuances in sound texture or timbre are more important than the sequence of repeated sounds.įind more on their work in Research Outreach, or read the original paper : ![]()
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