Effects of dyadic vocal interactions on other conspecific receivers in nightingales

Naguib, Marc; Todt, Dietmar

doi:10.1006/anbe.1997.9997

Cited by 118 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…But of course, to the extent that they Bmean^any-thing, these bark strings all mean the same thing. Some birds do more than this, acquiring quite complex and structured song repertoires via vocal learning, with basic elements numbering in the thousands (Kroodsma & Parker, 1977) and an unlimited variety of orderings (Hultsch & Todt, 1989;Weiss, Hultsch, Adam, Scharff, & Kipper, 2014), and listeners show clear awareness of different song types (Naguib & Kipper, 2006;Naguib & Todt, 1997). While such complex repertoires are far from trivial, and their strings differ discriminably from one another, they do not communicate equally complex semantic messages.…”

Section: Hierarchical Syntaxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

2017

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The study of language evolution, and human cognitive evolution more generally, has often been ridiculed as unscientific, but in fact it differs little from many other disciplines that investigate past events, such as geology or cosmology. Well-crafted models of language evolution make numerous testable hypotheses, and if the principles of strong inference (simultaneous testing of multiple plausible hypotheses) are adopted, there is an increasing amount of relevant data allowing empirical evaluation of such models. The articles in this special issue provide a concise overview of current models of language evolution, emphasizing the testable predictions that they make, along with overviews of the many sources of data available to test them (emphasizing comparative, neural, and genetic data). The key challenge facing the study of language evolution is not a lack of data, but rather a weak commitment to hypothesistesting approaches and strong inference, exacerbated by the broad and highly interdisciplinary nature of the relevant data. This introduction offers an overview of the field, and a summary of what needed to evolve to provide our species with language-ready brains. It then briefly discusses different contemporary models of language evolution, followed by an overview of different sources of data to test these models. I conclude with my own multistage model of how different components of language could have evolved.

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Section: Hierarchical Syntaxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

2017

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“…It is thought to occur when an individual changes his behaviour towards a conspecific, after observing the latter in a social interaction (Bonnie and Earley, 2007). Social eavesdropping has been mainly studied in two behavioural contexts: agonistic territorial interactions (Magnhagen, 2006;Naguib and Todt, 1997) …”

Section: The Role Of Public Information and Social Eavesdropping In Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

Castellano

Cadeddu

Cermelli

2012

Behavioural Processes

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a b s t r a c tThe present review is based on the thesis that mate choice results from information-processing mechanisms governed by computational rules and that, to understand how females choose their mates, we should identify which are the sources of information and how they are used to make decisions. We describe mate choice as a three-step computational process and for each step we present theories and review empirical evidence. The first step is a perceptual process. It describes the acquisition of evidence, that is, how females use multiple cues and signals to assign an attractiveness value to prospective mates (the preference function hypothesis). The second step is a decisional process. It describes the construction of the decision variable (DV), which integrates evidence (private information by direct assessment), priors (public information), and value (perceived utility) of prospective mates into a quantity that is used by a decision rule (DR) to produce a choice. We make the assumption that females are optimal Bayesian decision makers and we derive a formal model of DV that can explain the effects of preference functions, mate copying, social context, and females' state and condition on the patterns of mate choice. The third step of mating decision is a deliberative process that depends on the DRs. We identify two main categories of DRs (absolute and comparative rules), and review the normative models of mate sampling tactics associated to them. We highlight the limits of the normative approach and present a class of computational models (sequential-sampling models) that are based on the assumption that DVs accumulate noisy evidence over time until a decision threshold is reached. These models force us to rethink the dichotomy between comparative and absolute decision rules, between discrimination and recognition, and even between rational and irrational choice. Since they have a robust biological basis, we think they may represent a useful theoretical tool for behavioural ecologist interested in integrating proximate and ultimate causes of mate choice.

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“…This holds particularly in long-range acoustic interactions, and also at close range for other means of signalling, such as visual or tactile. In these cases, individuals that are not primary addressees can extract information on di¡erences in their conspeci¢cs by observing their interactions (Otte 1974;Freeman 1987;Endler 1992;Klump & Gerhardt 1992;Naguib & Todt 1997;Oliviera et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a way of gathering information is particularly valuable when interactions reveal di¡erences among the interacting individuals, as often occurs during vocal interactions in territorial song birds. So far, few studies have shown that birds indeed attend to vocal interactions of others and use this information in their decisions to respond (Naguib & Todt 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nightingales respond more strongly to vocal leaders of simulated dyadic interactions

Naguib

Fichtel

Todt

1999

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Although vocal interactions in songbirds have been well studied, little is known about the extent to which birds attend to their conspeci¢cs' interactions. Attending to others' interactions can provide valuable information since vocal interactions are often asymmetrical and can re£ect di¡erences in the state or quality of the signallers. Playback experiments with simulated dyadic interactions showed that male territorial nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos) attend to asymmetries in interactions and respond more strongly to rivals that overlap the songs of their counterpart. In order to test if nightingales respond di¡erently to two interacting rivals that are alternating songs asymmetrically (with leader^follower roles), we simulated an interaction using a dual-speaker design. Subjects discriminated between the simulated singing strategies and responded more intensely at the loudspeaker playing the preceding songs. This suggests that individuals whose songs precede in an interaction when there is no acoustic overlap are perceived as more serious rivals. Intense responses to the preceding songs compared with intense responses to the overlapping (non-preceding) songs in a previous study also indicate that discrimination is not the result of one speci¢c proximate cue such as greater attention to the ¢rst-or last-heard stimulus. Thus, these results provide further evidence that by listening to asymmetries in conspeci¢cs' vocal interactions, receivers can obtain valuable information on their relative di¡erences.

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Effects of dyadic vocal interactions on other conspecific receivers in nightingales

Cited by 118 publications

References 22 publications

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

Nightingales respond more strongly to vocal leaders of simulated dyadic interactions

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