Prosody in birdsong: A review and perspective

Mol, Carien; Chen, Aoju; Kager, René; Haar, Sita M. ter

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.016

Cited by 31 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 136 publications

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“…that are shared across a wide range of vertebrates underlie ''universals'' in phonological, prosodic, and musical patterns in humans [19,20,37,38].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Biases Underlie “Universals” in Avian Vocal Sequencing

James

Sakata

2017

Current Biology

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Biological predispositions in vocal learning have been proposed to underlie commonalities in vocal sequences, including for speech and birdsong, but cultural propagation could also account for such commonalities [1-4]. Songbirds such as the zebra finch learn the sequencing of their acoustic elements ("syllables") during development [5-8]. Zebra finches are not constrained to learn a specific sequence of syllables, but significant consistencies in the positioning and sequencing of syllables have been observed between individuals within populations and between populations [8-10]. To reveal biological predispositions in vocal sequence learning, we individually tutored juvenile zebra finches with randomized and unbiased sequences of syllables and analyzed the extent to which birds produced common sequences. In support of biological predispositions, birds tutored with randomized sequences produced songs with striking similarities. Birds preferentially started and ended their song sequence with particular syllables, consistently positioned shorter and higher frequency syllables in the middle of their song, and sequenced their syllables such that pitch alternated across adjacent syllables. These patterns are reminiscent of those observed in normally tutored birds, suggesting that birds "creolize" aberrant sequence inputs to produce normal sequence outputs. Similar patterns were also observed for syllables that were not used for tutoring (i.e., unlearned syllables), suggesting that motor biases could contribute to sequence learning biases. Furthermore, zebra finches spontaneously produced acoustic patterns that are commonly observed in speech and music, suggesting that sensorimotor processes that are shared across a wide range of vertebrates could underlie these patterns in humans.

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“…that are shared across a wide range of vertebrates underlie ''universals'' in phonological, prosodic, and musical patterns in humans [19,20,37,38].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Biases Underlie “Universals” in Avian Vocal Sequencing

James

Sakata

2017

Current Biology

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“…Yet it is not always clear which cues are used for the discrimination and whether these really indicate a sensitivity for rhythm or melody as such or are of a more simple nature (ten Cate, Spierings, Hubert, & Honing, 2016; Hoeschele et al., 2015). This clearly awaits further investigation, as does the suggestion that sensitivity to prosodic patterns across species may be linked to motor constraints that result in specific melodic and prosodic contours (e.g., initial pitch rise and final lengthening) characteristic of human utterances and some animal songs (Mol, Chen, Kager, & Ter Haar, 2017; Tierney, Russo, & Patel, 2011). The discovery of such patterns (in terms of how units are organized within utterances or how acoustic changes mark structural changes), together with the finding that very young human infants and distantly related animals can detect (and use for further discrimination of novel stimuli) acoustic cues characterizing linguistic rhythms, suggests that the perceptual sensitivity for rhythmic features used during language learning by humans might be shared across several species.…”

Section: Processing Of Acoustic Cues In Speech Is Shared Across Many mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is because vowels, but not consonants, require that the airstream passes uninterrupted through the vocal tract. In fact, the study of the control of the vocal tract while producing species‐specific vocalizations is key for understanding the evolutionary origins of phonetic categories and their links to acoustic variations in primates’ (Lameira, Maddieson, & Zuberbühler, 2014) and songbirds’ vocalizations (Mol et al., 2017). Acoustic differences might be at the root of functional differences between consonants and vowels.…”

Section: The Impact Of Vowels and Consonants On Aglmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently, too few species have been examined in sufficient detail to conclude whether we are dealing with abilities based on common descent or on convergence. However, there are many reasons to assume that prosodic variation is also of importance in the natural vocalizations of many animals (e.g., Mol et al., 2017). Thus, we argue that auditory abilities and biases most likely were already present in pre‐linguistic human ancestors and paved the road toward the evolution of syntactic structure in human language such that it aligned with those abilities and biases.…”

Section: The Role Of Auditory Processing During Language Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Comparative Perspective on the Role of Acoustic Cues in Detecting Language Structure

Mueller

Cate

Toro

2018

Topics in Cognitive Science

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Most human language learners acquire language primarily via the auditory modality. This is one reason why auditory artificial grammars play a prominent role in the investigation of the development and evolutionary roots of human syntax. The present position paper brings together findings from human and non-human research on the impact of auditory cues on learning about linguistic structures with a special focus on how different types of cues and biases in auditory cognition may contribute to success and failure in artificial grammar learning (AGL). The basis of our argument is the link between auditory cues and syntactic structure across languages and development. Cross-species comparison suggests that many aspects of auditory cognition that are relevant for language are not human specific and are present even in rather distantly related species. Furthermore, auditory cues and biases impact on learning, which we will discuss in the example of auditory perception and AGL studies. This observation, together with the significant role of auditory cues in language processing, supports the idea that auditory cues served as a bootstrap to syntax during language evolution. Yet this also means that potentially human-specific syntactic abilities are not due to basic auditory differences between humans and non-human animals but are based upon more advanced cognitive processes.

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“…The present research was designed to test this hypothesis, investigating whether infants would favor non-native speech over a nonprimate vocalization: birdsong. Songs produced by birds are harmonically rich and contain prosody-like components shared with human speech (rhythm, pitch excursions, changes in duration, intonation-like patterns; see Mol, Chen, Kager, & ter Haar, 2017 for a review). For this reason, birdsong represents one of the most complex vocal sounds in nature (Berwick, Okanoya, Beckers, & Bolhuis, 2011;Doupe & Kuhl, 1999;Petkov & Jarvis, 2012;Samuels, 2015;Yip, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of prosody in infants’ preference for speech: A comparison between speech and birdsong

Santolin

Russo

Calignano

et al. 2019

Infancy

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Speech preferences emerge very early in infancy, pointing to a special status for speech in auditory processing and a crucial role of prosody in driving infant preferences. Recent theoretical models suggest that infant auditory perception may initially encompass a broad range of human and nonhuman vocalizations, then tune in to relevant sounds for the acquisition of species‐specific communication sounds. However, little is known about sound properties eliciting infants’ tuning‐in to speech. To address this issue, we presented a group of 4‐month‐olds with segments of non‐native speech (Mandarin Chinese) and birdsong, a nonhuman vocalization that shares some prosodic components with speech. A second group of infants was presented with the same segment of birdsong paired with Mandarin played in reverse. Infants showed an overall preference for birdsong over non‐native speech. Moreover, infants in the Backward condition preferred birdsong over backward speech whereas infants in the Forward condition did not show clear preference. These results confirm the prominent role of prosody in early auditory processing and suggest that infants’ preferences may privilege communicative vocalizations featured by certain prosodic dimensions regardless of the biological source of the sound, human or nonhuman.

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Prosody in birdsong: A review and perspective

Cited by 31 publications

References 136 publications

Learning Biases Underlie “Universals” in Avian Vocal Sequencing

Learning Biases Underlie “Universals” in Avian Vocal Sequencing

A Comparative Perspective on the Role of Acoustic Cues in Detecting Language Structure

The role of prosody in infants’ preference for speech: A comparison between speech and birdsong

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