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Species-typical songs in white-crowned sparrows tutored with only phrase pairs

Nature volume 432, pages 753–758 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Modern theories of learned vocal behaviours, such as human speech and singing in songbirds1, posit that acoustic communication signals are reproduced from memory, using auditory feedback2. The nature of these memories, however, is unclear. Here we propose and test a model for how complex song structure can emerge from sparse sequence information acquired during tutoring. In this conceptual model, a population of combination-sensitive (phrase-pair) detectors is shaped by early exposure to song and serves as the minimal representation of the template necessary for generating complete song. As predicted by the model, birds that were tutored with only pairs of normally adjacent song phrases were able to assemble full songs in which phrases were placed in the correct order; birds that were tutored with reverse-ordered phrase pairs sang songs with reversed phrase order. Birds that were tutored with all song phrases, but presented singly, failed to produce normal, full songs. These findings provide the first evidence for a minimal requirement of sequence information in the acoustic model that can give rise to correct song structure.

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Figure 1: Sound spectrograms of songs of two white-crowned sparrows and tutor models.
Figure 2: Sound spectrograms of representative crystallized songs.
Figure 3: Sound spectrograms of representative songs of birds that were tutored with the phrase pairs DE, CD, BC and AB, presented in that order (see Fig. 1b).
Figure 4: Sound spectrograms of representative songs of birds that were tutored with the phrase pairs BA, CB, DC, ED, presented in that order.
Figure 5: Song development for birds tutored with forward (bird 48) or reversed-order (birds 67 and 84) phrase pairs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the University of Utah and NIH. We thank T. Dance for technical assistance, E. Haskell for guidance in statistical analyses, J. Whittington for molecular sexing of birds and R. Dendukuri for writing computer programs used in analysis and presentation of data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112-0840, USA

    Gary J. Rose, Franz Goller, Howard J. Gritton, Stephanie L. Plamondon, Alexander T. Baugh & Brenton G. Cooper

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  1. Gary J. Rose
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  2. Franz Goller
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Correspondence to Gary J. Rose.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure, Legend and Text

A detailed description of the model proposed and tested in our experiment whereby birds tutored with phrase pairs are able to assemble complete songs. The figure represents a graphical depiction of the model for a song consisting of three phrases. (DOC 139 kb)

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Rose, G., Goller, F., Gritton, H. et al. Species-typical songs in white-crowned sparrows tutored with only phrase pairs. Nature 432, 753–758 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02992

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