'Baby talk' can help songbirds learn their tunes

Research has implications for understanding human developmental disorders such as autism

Date: May 31, 2016

Source: McGill University

Adult songbirds modify their vocalizations when singing to juveniles in the same way that humans alter their speech when talking to babies. The resulting brain activity in young birds could shed light on speech learning and certain developmental disorders in humans, according to a study by McGill University researchers.

Lead author Jon Sakata, a professor of neurobiology at McGill, says that songbirds learn vocalizations like humans learn speech. "Songbirds first listen to and memorize the sound of adult songs and then undergo a period of vocal practice-in essence, babbling-to master the production of song."

Researchers have been studying song learning in birds for some time. But the degree to which social interaction with adult birds contributes to that learning has been unclear. That's because, unlike this current work, past studies didn't control for the time exposed to song and the presence of other birds.

Vocal learning

In this study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of juvenile zebra finches was allowed to interact with an adult. Another group simply heard adult songs played through a speaker. After a brief period of "tutoring" the juveniles were house individually for months as they practiced their tunes.

Sakata and his team found that avian pupils who socialized with an adult learned the adult's song much better. That was true even if the social tutoring lasted just one day. In analyzing why this would be so, Sakata and his team made a surprising discovery.

Adult zebra finches change their vocalizations when singing to juveniles. Sakata says just as people speak more slowly and repeat words more often when speaking to infants, so do these birds. "We found that adult zebra finches similarly slow down their song by increasing the interval between song phrases and repeat individual song elements more often when singing to juveniles."

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