scholarly journals High-capacity auditory memory for vocal communication in a social songbird

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (46) ◽  
pp. eabe0440
Author(s):  
K. Yu ◽  
W. E. Wood ◽  
F. E. Theunissen
Keyword(s):  
Zebra Finch ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Auditory Memory ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Conditioning Experiments

Effective vocal communication often requires the listener to recognize the identity of a vocalizer, and this recognition is dependent on the listener’s ability to form auditory memories. We tested the memory capacity of a social songbird, the zebra finch, for vocalizer identities using conditioning experiments and found that male and female zebra finches can remember a large number of vocalizers (mean, 42) based solely on the individual signatures found in their songs and distance calls. These memories were formed within a few trials, were generalized to previously unheard renditions, and were maintained for up to a month. A fast and high-capacity auditory memory for vocalizer identity has not been demonstrated previously in any nonhuman animals and is an important component of vocal communication in social species.

scholarly journals Acoustic Communication and Sound Degradation: How Do the Individual Signatures of Male and Female Zebra Finch Calls Transmit over Distance?

PLoS ONE ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. e102842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solveig C. Mouterde ◽  
Frédéric E. Theunissen ◽  
Julie E. Elie ◽  
Clémentine Vignal ◽  
Nicolas Mathevon
Keyword(s):  
Zebra Finch ◽  
Acoustic Communication ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Individual

Aggressive Behaviour in the Zebra Finch Taeniopygia GuttataI. Fighting Provoked By Male and Female Social Partners

Behaviour ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 226-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter G. Caryl
Keyword(s):  
Zebra Finch ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Aggressive Behaviour ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Stimulus Properties ◽  
Motivational Systems ◽  
Modes Of Action ◽  
Pair Bonds ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIn the domesticated Zebra Finch, unpaired males behaved sociably towards one another, but could be provoked to fight by the sight of a female nearby; the amount of fighting shown depended on the distance to the female. Qualitatively similar aggressive behaviour was provoked between males by the sight of a male, and between a male and female by the sight of another female. However, males were less effective than females in provoking fighting between females, and pair-bonded females were more effective than non-bonded females in provoking fighting in mixed or male dyads. Homosexual pair bonds had a similar effect to heterosexual ones in stimulating attacks on a male, but had not effect on aggressive behaviour towards a female. The aggressive behaviour seen could not be due to redirection of aggression, since the stimulus properties which were necessary to provoke attack on another individual were those relevant to sexual behaviour, and were different from those necessary to elicit attack on the individual itself. It is shown that in other cases of apparent redirection of aggression in sexual contexts, a similar conclusion can be drawn, indicating a link between the motivational systems controlling sexual and aggressive behaviour. Since stimuli from an individual may both sensitize a bird to respond aggressively to stimuli from other individuals, and elicit attack by the bird on the individual itself, a distinction between these modes of action (similar to TINBERGEN'S distinction between releasing and motivational effects) is necessary.

scholarly journals Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick A. R. Jones ◽  
Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽  
Mike Webster ◽  
Luke Rendell
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Behavioural Phenotype ◽  
Social Species ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Animals ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in the Vocal Communication of Malayan Tapirs (Tapirus indicus) Considering Familiarity and Relatedness

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1026
Author(s):  
Robin Walb ◽  
Lorenzo von Fersen ◽  
Theo Meijer ◽  
Kurt Hammerschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Solitary Living ◽  
Low Visibility ◽  
Living Species ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Tapirus Indicus

Studies in animal communication have shown that many species have individual distinct calls. These individual distinct vocalizations can play an important role in animal communication because they can carry important information about the age, sex, personality, or social role of the signaler. Although we have good knowledge regarding the importance of individual vocalization in social living mammals, it is less clear to what extent solitary living mammals possess individual distinct vocalizations. We recorded and analyzed the vocalizations of 14 captive adult Malayan tapirs (Tapirus indicus) (six females and eight males) to answer this question. We investigated whether familiarity or relatedness had an influence on call similarity. In addition to sex-related differences, we found significant differences between all subjects, comparable to the individual differences found in highly social living species. Surprisingly, kinship appeared to have no influence on call similarity, whereas familiar subjects exhibited significantly higher similarity in their harmonic calls compared to unfamiliar or related subjects. The results support the view that solitary animals could have individual distinct calls, like highly social animals. Therefore, it is likely that non-social factors, like low visibility, could have an influence on call individuality. The increasing knowledge of their behavior will help to protect this endangered species.

scholarly journals Discrimination of natural acoustic variation in vocal signals

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R. Fishbein ◽  
Nora H. Prior ◽  
Jane A. Brown ◽  
Gregory F. Ball ◽  
Robert J. Dooling
Keyword(s):  
Zebra Finch ◽  
Acoustic Communication ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Vocal Signals ◽  
Acoustic Variation ◽  
Zebra Finch Song ◽  
Human Listener

AbstractStudies of acoustic communication often focus on the categories and units of vocalizations, but subtle variation also occurs in how these signals are uttered. In human speech, it is not only phonemes and words that carry information but also the timbre, intonation, and stress of how speech sounds are delivered (often referred to as “paralinguistic content”). In non-human animals, variation across utterances of vocal signals also carries behaviorally relevant information across taxa. However, the discriminability of these cues has been rarely tested in a psychophysical paradigm. Here, we focus on acoustic communication in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), a songbird species in which the male produces a single stereotyped motif repeatedly in song bouts. These motif renditions, like the song repetitions of many birds, sound very similar to the casual human listener. In this study, we show that zebra finches can easily discriminate between the renditions, even at the level of single song syllables, much as humans can discriminate renditions of speech sounds. These results support the notion that sensitivity to fine acoustic details may be a primary channel of information in zebra finch song, as well as a shared, foundational property of vocal communication systems across species.

The Perception of "Sine-Wave Speech" by Adults With Developmental Dyslexia

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burton S. Rosner ◽  
Joel B. Talcott ◽  
Caroline Witton ◽  
James D. Hogg ◽  
Alexandra J. Richardson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Sine Wave ◽  
Auditory Memory ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Word Position ◽  
Phonological Contrasts ◽  
Impaired Speech ◽  
Sine Wave Speech

Numerous studies have shown that, as a group, children or adults with developmental dyslexia perceive isolated syllables or words abnormally. Continuous speech containing reduced acoustic information also might prove perceptually difficult to such listeners. They might, however, exploit the intact syntactic and semantic features present in whole utterances, thereby compensating fully for impaired speech perception. "Sine-wave speech" sentences afford a test of these competing possibilities. The sentences contain only 4 frequency-modulated sine waves, lacking many acoustic cues present in natural speech. Adults with and without dyslexia were asked to orally reproduce 9 sine-wave utterances, each occurring in 4 immediately successive trials. Participants with dyslexia reported fewer words than did control listeners. Practice, phonological contrasts, and word position affected both groups similarly. Comprehension of sine-wave sentences seems impaired in many, but not all, adults with dyslexia. A reduced auditory memory capacity may contribute to this deficit.

scholarly journals infancialização, ubuntu e teko porã: elementos gerais para educação e ética afroperspectivistas

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (31) ◽  
pp. 625-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Noguera ◽  
Marcos Barreto
Keyword(s):  
African Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Philosophical Frameworks ◽  
Current Practices

This article proposes an unusual approach on childhood and the dynamics of school routine. Starting from the assumption that childhood is a polysemous concept, it invites reflection on the concept of childfication as a possibility of rupture with current practices of reality’s experimentation, based on African and Brazilian indigenous philosophical frameworks. In order to do this, a dialogue is established with the African philosophy of Ubuntu and Brazilian indigenous philosophy’s Teko Porã with the aim of bringing to the educational area the connection of the individual with community, recognizing and respecting diversity in a planned vision, where living beings live in an interdependent relationship. These concepts discard the colonizing perspective that we are prepared to dominate, emphasizing that human beings, nonhuman animals and the environment are not available and we must treat living beings without utilitarianism, but like a part of us.

scholarly journals Genetic homozygosity as a marker of smoking dependency

Genetika ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 1009-1019
Author(s):  
Slavko Brankovic ◽  
Dejan Nikolic ◽  
Dragoslav Marinkovic ◽  
Suzana Cvjeticanin
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Individual

The aim of our study was to evaluate the morphogenetic variability as a marker of smoking dependency in adult smokers versus controls and to investigate the presence and the degree of morphogenetic variability difference between male and female smokers versus same gender controls. The cross-sectional study evaluated 241 smokers and 185 nonsmoker individuals as controls. We analyzed 17 homozygous recessive characteristics (HRC). There was a significant difference in the individual variations of 17 HRCs between the controls and smokers (??2=61.400, p<0.001; for females ??2=79.440, p<0.001; for males ??2=84.972, p<0.001). The mean values of HRCs significantly differed between smokers and controls (MV?SEM(Controls) -4.79?0.13, MV?SEM(Smokers) -5.70?0.12; p<0.001). For males, presence of 6/17 (35.29% genetic homozygosity) HRCs (OR=6.12) was to the certain degree predictor for smoking dependency. Higher degree of genetic homozygosity, changed variability and male gender, might be some among potential numerous factors that could have impact on smoking development and dependence.

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