Dataset Information

Reconstruction of physiological instructions from Zebra finch song.

ABSTRACT: We reconstruct the physiological parameters that control an avian vocal organ during birdsong production using recorded song. The procedure involves fitting the time dependent parameters of an avian vocal organ model. Computationally, the model is implemented as a dynamical system ruling the behavior of the oscillating labia that modulate the air flow during sound production, together with the equations describing the dynamics of pressure fluctuations in the vocal tract. We tested our procedure for Zebra finch song with, simultaneously recorded physiological parameters: air sac pressure and the electromyographic activity of the left and right ventral syringeal muscles. A comparison of the reconstructed instructions with measured physiological parameters during song shows a high degree of correlation. Integrating the model with reconstructed parameters leads to the synthesis of highly realistic songs.

SUBMITTER: Perl YS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3909473 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reconstruction of physiological instructions from Zebra finch song.

Perl Yonatan Sanz YS Arneodo Ezequiel M EM Amador Ana A Goller Franz F Mindlin Gabriel B GB

Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics 20111116 5 Pt 1

We reconstruct the physiological parameters that control an avian vocal organ during birdsong production using recorded song. The procedure involves fitting the time dependent parameters of an avian vocal organ model. Computationally, the model is implemented as a dynamical system ruling the behavior of the oscillating labia that modulate the air flow during sound production, together with the equations describing the dynamics of pressure fluctuations in the vocal tract. We tested our procedure ...[more]

PMID: 22181446

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Project description:The human capacity for speech and vocal music depends on vocal imitation. Songbirds, in contrast to non-human primates, share this vocal production learning with humans. The process through which birds and humans learn many of their vocalizations as well as the underlying neural system exhibit a number of striking parallels and have been widely researched. In contrast, rhythm, a key feature of language, and music, has received surprisingly little attention in songbirds. Investigating temporal periodicity in bird song has the potential to inform the relationship between neural mechanisms and behavioral output and can also provide insight into the biology and evolution of musicality. Here we present a method to analyze birdsong for an underlying rhythmic regularity. Using the intervals from one note onset to the next as input, we found for each bird an isochronous sequence of time stamps, a "signal-derived pulse," or pulse(S), of which a subset aligned with all note onsets of the bird's song. Fourier analysis corroborated these results. To determine whether this finding was just a byproduct of the duration of notes and intervals typical for zebra finches but not dependent on the individual duration of elements and the sequence in which they are sung, we compared natural songs to models of artificial songs. Note onsets of natural song deviated from the pulse(S) significantly less than those of artificial songs with randomized note and gap durations. Thus, male zebra finch song has the regularity required for a listener to extract a perceived pulse (pulse(P)), as yet untested. Strikingly, in our study, pulses(S) that best fit note onsets often also coincided with the transitions between sub-note elements within complex notes, corresponding to neuromuscular gestures. Gesture durations often equaled one or more pulse(S) periods. This suggests that gesture duration constitutes the basic element of the temporal hierarchy of zebra finch song rhythm, an interesting parallel to the hierarchically structured components of regular rhythms in human music.

Project description:Culture is typically viewed as consisting of traits inherited epigenetically, through social learning. However, cultural diversity has species-typical constraints, presumably of genetic origin. A celebrated, if contentious, example is whether a universal grammar constrains syntactic diversity in human languages. Oscine songbirds exhibit song learning and provide biologically tractable models of culture: members of a species show individual variation in song and geographically separated groups have local song dialects. Different species exhibit distinct song cultures, suggestive of genetic constraints. Without such constraints, innovations and copying errors should cause unbounded variation over multiple generations or geographical distance, contrary to observations. Here we report an experiment designed to determine whether wild-type song culture might emerge over multiple generations in an isolated colony founded by isolates, and, if so, how this might happen and what type of social environment is required. Zebra finch isolates, unexposed to singing males during development, produce song with characteristics that differ from the wild-type song found in laboratory or natural colonies. In tutoring lineages starting from isolate founders, we quantified alterations in song across tutoring generations in two social environments: tutor-pupil pairs in sound-isolated chambers and an isolated semi-natural colony. In both settings, juveniles imitated the isolate tutors but changed certain characteristics of the songs. These alterations accumulated over learning generations. Consequently, songs evolved towards the wild-type in three to four generations. Thus, species-typical song culture can appear de novo. Our study has parallels with language change and evolution. In analogy to models in quantitative genetics, we model song culture as a multigenerational phenotype partly encoded genetically in an isolate founding population, influenced by environmental variables and taking multiple generations to emerge.

Dataset Information

Reconstruction of physiological instructions from Zebra finch song.

Publications

Reconstruction of physiological instructions from Zebra finch song.

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