Female preference for artificial song dialects in the zebra finch ( <i>Taeniopygia guttata</i> )

Song , stress and female preferences in the zebra finch , Taeniop

Developmental song learning in the zebra finch

Developmental learning (for example, speech acquisition in human infants) takes place early in life but its effects may last the entire lifetime of the individual. Developmental learning is difficult to study because the behavioral changes involved span many time scales: The challenge is to relate the developmental parameters to behavioral changes, which can occur within hours as well as across...

Selectivity for conspecific song in the zebra finch auditory forebrain.

The selectivity of neurons in the zebra finch auditory forebrain for natural sounds was investigated systematically. The principal auditory forebrain area in songbirds consists of the tonotopically organized field L complex, which, by its location in the auditory processing stream, can be compared with the auditory cortex of mammals. We also recorded from a secondary auditory area, cHV. Field L...

“Bird Song Metronomics”: Isochronous Organization of Zebra Finch Song Rhythm

The human capacity for speech and vocal music depends on vocal imitation. Songbirds, in contrast to non-human primates, share this vocal production learning with humans. The process through which birds and humans learn many of their vocalizations as well as the underlying neural system exhibit a number of striking parallels and have been widely researched. In contrast, rhythm, a key feature of ...

Neural song preference during vocal learning in the zebra finch depends on age and state.

The zebra finch acquires its song by first memorizing a model song from a tutor and then matching its own vocalizations to the memory trace of the tutor song, called a template. Neural mechanisms underlying this process require a link between the neural memory trace and the premotor song circuitry, which drives singing. We now report that a premotor song nucleus responds more to the tutor song ...