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Adult birdsong is actively maintained by error correction

Nature Neuroscience volume 12, pages 927–931 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Humans learn to speak by a process of vocal imitation that requires the availability of auditory feedback. Similarly, young birds rely on auditory feedback when learning to imitate the songs of adult birds, providing one of the few examples of nonhuman vocal learning. However, although humans continue to use auditory feedback to correct vocal errors in adulthood, the mechanisms underlying the stability of adult birdsong are unknown. We found that, similar to human speech, adult birdsong is maintained by error correction. We perturbed the pitch (fundamental frequency) of auditory feedback in adult Bengalese finches using custom-designed headphones. Birds compensated for the imposed auditory error by adjusting the pitch of song. When the perturbation was removed, pitch returned to baseline. Our results indicate that adult birds correct vocal errors by comparing auditory feedback to a sensory target and suggest that lifelong error correction is a general principle of learned vocal behavior.

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Figure 1: Technique for manipulating auditory feedback.
Figure 2: Vocal error correction driven by an upward shift in the pitch of auditory feedback.
Figure 3: Error correction in response to upward and downward shifts in feedback pitch.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Sabes and A. Doupe for critical discussions, T. Warren, K. Bouchard and L. Didier-Sober for technical assistance and J. Wong and R. Mazumder for animal care. This work was supported by the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation (S.J.S.), a McKnight Scholar Award (M.S.B.) and US National Institutes of Health grants R01DC006636 and P50MH77970.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, W.M. Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, California, USA

    Samuel J Sober & Michael S Brainard

Authors
  1. Samuel J Sober
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  2. Michael S Brainard
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Contributions

S.J.S. and M.S.B. designed the experiments and wrote the paper. S.J.S. designed and built the experimental apparatus, conducted the experiments and analyzed the data.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel J Sober.

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Sober, S., Brainard, M. Adult birdsong is actively maintained by error correction. Nat Neurosci 12, 927–931 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2336

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