Dataset Information

Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in the southern pied babbler.

ABSTRACT: Language's expressive power is largely attributable to its compositionality: meaningful words are combined into larger/higher-order structures with derived meaning. Despite its importance, little is known regarding the evolutionary origins and emergence of this syntactic ability. Although previous research has shown a rudimentary capability to combine meaningful calls in primates, because of a scarcity of comparative data, it is unclear to what extent analog forms might also exist outside of primates. Here, we address this ambiguity and provide evidence for rudimentary compositionality in the discrete vocal system of a social passerine, the pied babbler (Turdoides bicolor). Natural observations and predator presentations revealed that babblers produce acoustically distinct alert calls in response to close, low-urgency threats and recruitment calls when recruiting group members during locomotion. On encountering terrestrial predators, both vocalizations are combined into a "mobbing sequence," potentially to recruit group members in a dangerous situation. To investigate whether babblers process the sequence in a compositional way, we conducted systematic experiments, playing back the individual calls in isolation as well as naturally occurring and artificial sequences. Babblers reacted most strongly to mobbing sequence playbacks, showing a greater attentiveness and a quicker approach to the loudspeaker, compared with individual calls or control sequences. We conclude that the sequence constitutes a compositional structure, communicating information on both the context and the requested action. Our work supports previous research suggesting combinatoriality as a viable mechanism to increase communicative output and indicates that the ability to combine and process meaningful vocal structures, a basic syntax, may be more widespread than previously thought.

SUBMITTER: Engesser S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4889383 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in the southern pied babbler.

Engesser Sabrina S Ridley Amanda R AR Townsend Simon W SW

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20160506 21

Language's expressive power is largely attributable to its compositionality: meaningful words are combined into larger/higher-order structures with derived meaning. Despite its importance, little is known regarding the evolutionary origins and emergence of this syntactic ability. Although previous research has shown a rudimentary capability to combine meaningful calls in primates, because of a scarcity of comparative data, it is unclear to what extent analog forms might also exist outside of pri ...[more]

PMID: 27155011

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Project description:IntroductionDespite the widely recognized ethical and practical benefits of community engagement in HIV research, epistemic injustice persists within the field. Namely, the knowledge held by communities disproportionately affected by HIV is systematically afforded less credibility than that of more privileged academic researchers. In order to illustrate what this looks like in practice, we synthesized the extent of reporting on community engagement within recent high-impact HIV intervention research papers. However, we also posit that the HIV research sector has the potential to devise and showcase world-leading examples of equitable research-community partnerships and suggest actionable key steps to achieving this goal.DiscussionIn the absence of reporting requirements within the publishing process, it is difficult to infer whether and how the community have been consulted in the design, implementation, analysis and/or interpretation of findings. As an illustrative exercise, we offer a rapid synthesis of the extent of reporting on community engagement in HIV research from 2017 to 2019, which highlighted sporadic and very low rates of reporting of community engagement in recent high-impact HIV intervention studies. Of note is that none of the included studies reported on community engagement through all stages of the research process. There were also discrepancies in how community involvement was reported. We provide three actionable recommendations to enhance reporting on community engagement in HIV research: (1) community-led organizations, researchers and scientific journals should band together to develop, publish and require adherence to standardized guidelines for reporting on community involvement in HIV research; (2) research funders should (continue to) require details about how relevant communities have been engaged prior to the submission of funding requests; and (3) researchers should take proactive measures to describe their engagement with community organizations in a clear and transparent manner.ConclusionsThere is a clear and urgent need for guidelines that facilitate transparent and consistent reporting on community engagement in HIV intervention research. Without standardized reporting requirements and accountability mechanisms within the research sector, the extent of meaningful community engagement cannot be established and may remain a catchphrase rather than reality.

Project description:Albumin infusions are therapeutically used to revert hypoalbuminemia and to replace the extensively oxidized albumin molecule circulating in patients with acutely decompensated (AD) cirrhosis. Because albumin has high affinity for lipids, here we characterized the albumin lipidome in patients with AD and explored the albumin effects on the release of fatty acid (FA)-derived lipid mediators by peripheral leukocytes. Lipids and lipid mediators were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in albumin-enriched and albumin-depleted plasma fractions separated by affinity chromatography and in leukocyte incubations from 18 patients with AD and 10 healthy subjects (HS). Lipid mediators were also measured in 41 patients with AD included in an albumin therapy trial. The plasma lipidome associated with AD cirrhosis was characterized by generalized suppression of all lipid classes except FAs. In contrast to HS, albumin from patients with AD had lower content of polyunsaturated FAs (PUFAs), especially of the omega-3-PUFA docosahexaenoic acid. Consistent with this, the PUFA-derived lipid mediator landscape of albumin from patients with AD was dominated by lower content of monohydroxy FA precursors of anti-inflammatory/pro-resolving lipid mediators (i.e., 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid [15-HETE]). In addition, albumin from patients with AD was depleted in prostaglandin (PG) E2 , suggesting that this proinflammatory PG primarily travels disassociated to albumin in these patients. Incubation of leukocytes with exogenous albumin reduced PG production while inducing 15-lipoxygenase expression and 15-HETE release. Similar effects were seen under lipopolysaccharide plus N-formylmethionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine-stimulated conditions. Finally, PG levels were lower in patients with AD receiving albumin therapy, whereas 15-HETE was increased after albumin treatment compared with baseline. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the albumin lipid composition is severely disorganized in AD cirrhosis and that administration of exogenous albumin has the potential to redirect leukocyte biosynthesis from pro-inflammatory to pro-resolving lipid mediators.

Dataset Information

Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in the southern pied babbler.

Publications

Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in the southern pied babbler.

Similar Datasets

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