Teaching a Musical Code to a Parrot: Frequency Discrimination and the Concept of Rhythm in a Grey Parrot (psittacus Erithacus) Uœenje Glasbenih Motivov Pri Papagaju: Frekvenœno Razloœevanje in Koncept Ritma Pri Sivem Æakoju (psittacus Erithacus)
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چکیده
Teaching a musical code to a parrot: Frequency discrimination and the concept of rhythm in a Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) Music competence and perception should be considered in evaluating human cognitive processes, unfortunately, evolutionary onset of music is still unclear. Although connections between human language and other animal communication patterns remain limited and controversial, humans share musical “language” at least with birds. Recently, many studies seem to point out that in many vertebrate species’ song there could be structures comparable to those of human music. African Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) is well known for his ability in song and speech learning. In our study we tried to understand if a female African Grey, Theo, were able to learn and properly use some basic elements of the musical language, in particular we choose the intonation and rhythm. We taught first Theo to answer with sequences of “notes” to some simple melodies played with an electric piano, then we recorded every “musical” output sung by Theo. Peak frequency analysis and comparison between parrot’s sequences and random generated strings, confirmed the acquisition of the intonation concept and notes amplitude peak showed Theo’s tendency to maintain a rhythmic regularity. Furthermore, data analysis stressed the great complexity and innovation in the musical sequences uttered by the bird, that led us to exclude the simple imitation process. Key worlds: Cognition, music, intonation, temperate scale.
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