From birdsong to speech: a plea for comparative approaches

Abstract

Human language and speech are unique accomplishments. Nevertheless, they share a number of characteristics with other systems of communication, and investigators have thus compared them to birdsong and the vocal signaling of nonhuman primates. Particular interesting parallels concern the development of singing and speaking. These behaviors rely on auditory perception, subsequent memorization and finally, the generation of vocal imitations. Several mechanisms help young individuals to deal with the various challenges during the time of signal development. Specific differences aside, astounding parallels can be found also in how a human and a particularly accomplished bird like the Common Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos treat the experience of many different sound patterns or songs. As a consequence of such exposure, both human infants and young birds eventually acquire large repertoires of verbal or vocal signals. These achievements, however, require access to specific memory mechanisms which are well adapted to the purposes they serve, thereby allowing them to fulfil their species typical roles. With such aspects as a reference, birdsong is an excellent biological model for memory research and also an appropriate system for the study of evolutionary strategies in a very successful class of organisms.

Universal Features in the Singing of Birds Uncovered by Comparative Research

“…And, individual variation of song duration was mainly a result of differences in syllable repetition within trilled song sections. Although some of these findings were predicted already by former studies (see Todt, 2004), their essentials can be based now on profound data sets of detailed measurement. …”

“…Another issue has been forwarded by investigators who studied the vocal interactions of songbirds (reviews in Todt and Naguib, 2000;Todt, 2004). When referring to their finding that interacting birds switch between singing and hearing, Hultsch (1996, 1998) postulated that an optimal management of song exchange should favour an evolution of similar song durations and also mechanisms allowing a rapid memory retrieval of songs.…”

Filter Bank Design for Melody Recognition

“…This resolution should have special requirements compared to other conventional signal processing techniques. Examining these requirements makes us possible to reach superior quality over standard methods [1,15,20].…”

Acoustic and perceptual categories of vocal elements in the warble song of budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus).

“…Bird vocalizations, especially the learned songs of oscines, have been intensively studied since the 1950s (see review in Marler, 2004) such that songbirds, for better or worse, represent the best, if not the only, animal models for understanding the neurobiological processes underlying human speech and language learning (Brainard & Doupe, 2002; Doupe & Kuhl, 1999; Goldstein, King, & West, 2003; Marler, 1970; Marler & Peters, 1981; Todt, 2004; Wilbrecht & Nottebohm, 2003). However, songbird songs are generally short (a few seconds) and stereotyped.…”