Traffic noise disrupts vocal development and suppresses immune function.

Noise pollution has been linked to learning and language deficits in children, but the causal mechanisms connecting noise to cognitive deficiencies remain unclear because experimental models are lacking. Here, we investigated the effects of noise on birdsong learning, the primary animal model for vocal learning and speech development in humans. We found that traffic noise exposure retarded vocal development and led to learning inaccuracies.

Auditory perception of self and others in zebra finches: evidence from an operant discrimination task.

Vocal communication is essential for social interactions in many animal species. For this purpose, an animal has to perceive vocal signals of conspecifics and is often also required to discriminate conspecifics. The capacity to discriminate conspecifics is particularly important in social species in which individuals interact repeatedly.

Individual vocal recognition in zebra finches relies on song syllable structure rather than song syllable order.

Many species are able to vocally recognize individual conspecifics and this capacity seems widespread in oscine songbirds. The exact acoustic features used for such recognition are often not clear. In the zebra finch (), the song motif is composed of a few syllables repeated in a fixed sequential order and song bouts include several repetitions of the motif.

Assessing vocal performance in complex birdsong: a novel approach.

Background: Vocal performance refers to the ability to produce vocal signals close to physical limits. Such motor skills can be used by conspecifics to assess a signaller's competitive potential. For example it is difficult for birds to produce repeated syllables both rapidly and with a broad frequency bandwidth.

How a songbird with a continuous singing style modulates its song when territorially challenged.

In songbirds of the temperate zone, often only males sing and their songs serve to attract females and to deter territorial rivals. In many species, males vary certain aspects of their singing behavior when engaged in territorial interactions. Such variation may be an honest signal of the traits of the signaler, such as fighting strength, condition, or aggressive motivation, and may be used by receivers in decisions on whether to retreat or to escalate a fight.

Flight phases in the song of skylarks: impact on acoustic parameters and coding strategy.

Skylarks inhabit open fields and perform an aerial song display which serves as a territorial signal. The particularly long and elaborate structure of this song flight raises questions about the impact of physical and energetic constraints acting on a communication signal. Song produced during the three distinct phases of the flight - ascending, level and descending phase could be subject to different constraints, serve different functions and encode different types of information.

Song learning in male and female Uraeginthus cyanocephalus, a tropical songbird species [corrected].

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 127(4) of Journal of Comparative Psychology (see record 2013-35936-001). In the article, the title of the article included parenthesis due to an editing error. The title should have been "Song Learning in Male and Female Uraeginthus Cyanocephalus, a Tropical Songbird Species.

Bird song and anthropogenic noise: vocal constraints may explain why birds sing higher-frequency songs in cities.

When animals live in cities, they have to adjust their behaviour and life histories to novel environments. Noise pollution puts a severe constraint on vocal communication by interfering with the detection of acoustic signals. Recent studies show that city birds sing higher-frequency songs than their conspecifics in non-urban habitats.

Memory-dependent adjustment of vocal response latencies in a territorial songbird.

Vocal interactions in songbirds can be used as a model system to investigate the interplay of intrinsic singing programmes (e.g. influences from vocal memories) and external variables (e.

Undirected (solitary) birdsong in female and male blue-capped cordon-bleus (Uraeginthus cyanocephalus) and its endocrine correlates.

Background: Birdsong is a popular model system in research areas such as vocal communication, neuroethology or neuroendocrinology of behaviour. As most research has been conducted on species with male-only song production, the hormone-dependency of male song is well established. However, female singing and its mechanisms are poorly understood.

An experimental test of condition-dependent male and female mate choice in zebra finches.

In mating systems with social monogamy and obligatory bi-parental care, such as found in many songbird species, male and female fitness depends on the combined parental investment. Hence, both sexes should gain from choosing mates in high rather than low condition. However, theory also predicts that an individual's phenotypic quality can constrain choice, if low condition individuals cannot afford prolonged search efforts and/or face higher risk of rejection.

Females alter their song when challenged in a sex-role reversed bird species.

Birdsong serves to attract mates and to deter territorial rivals. Even though song is not restricted to males, this dual function has almost exclusively been demonstrated for male song. To test the generality of hypotheses on birdsong, we investigated female song in the sex-role reversed, classically polyandrous African black coucal (Centropus grillii) in the context of female-female competition.

Rules of song development and their use in vocal interactions by birds with large repertoires.

Songbirds are well known for settling their disputes by vocal signals, and their singing plays a dominant role. Most studies on this issue have concentrated on bird species that develop and use small vocal repertoires. In this article we will go farther and focus on examples of how species with large song repertoires make use of their vocal competence.

Long-time storage of song types in birds: evidence from interactive playbacks.

In studies of birdsong learning, imitation-based assays of stimulus memorization do not take into account that tutored song types may have been stored, but were not retrieved from memory. Such a 'silent' reservoir of song material could be used later in the bird's life, e.g.