Abstract
Exchange of vocal signals is an important aspect of animal communication. Although birdsong is the premier model for understanding vocal development, the development of vocal interaction rules in birds and possible parallels to humans have been little studied. Many tropical songbirds engage in complex vocal interactions in the form of duets between mated pairs. In some species, duets show precise temporal coordination and follow rules (duet codes) governing which song type one bird uses to reply to each of the song types of its mate. We determined whether these duetting rules are acquired during early development in canebrake wrens. Results show that juveniles acquire a duet code by singing with a mated pair of adults and that juveniles gradually increase their fidelity to the code over time. Additionally, we found that juveniles exhibit poorer temporal coordination than adults and improve their coordination as time progresses. Human turn-taking, an analogous rule to temporal coordination, is learned during early development. We report that the ontogeny of vocal interaction rules in songbirds is analogous to that of human conversation rules.
Highlights
Complex communication systems, including human language, involve highly structured interactions [1]
Interactions between carers and infants enhance speech learning [21]. These results suggest that both, species that learn to produce their vocalizations and those that do not can learn vocal interaction rules, and that vocal production learning and vocal interaction learning do not need to be tied
All animal manipulation was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) of the University of Miami (Protocol 15–064)
Summary
Complex communication systems, including human language, involve highly structured interactions [1]. Vocal interactions between other types of primates include call exchanges between group members in marmoset monkeys [2] and duetting between mated pairs of gibbons [3]. Among non-human species, the most complex vocal interactions studied to date occur in birds [4]. Male songbirds engage in various kinds of vocal.
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