Pitch Shift Partially Restores Song Sequencing Changes Induced by Delayed Auditory Feedback in Bengalese Finches Open Access

Wyatt, MacKenzie (2016)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/fx719m50n?locale=en
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Abstract

Songbirds learn their vocalizations in a similar way that humans learn how to speak. Auditory feedback plays an important role in bird's maintenance of its stable rendition of song (crystallized song) and human speech. This feedback gives the bird important information to correct for errors in the song. The timing and pitch of auditory feedback influence how birds correct for these errors. However, large changes in pitch constrain error correction. Characteristics of auditory feedback also affect human speech. Because delayed auditory feedback induces repetitive vocal behavior in fluent speakers, one model proposes that delayed auditory processing underlies one mechanism of stuttering. A large pitch shift can partially restore normal speech to dysfluent speakers. Despite the connection to timing and pitch of auditory feedback in repetitive motor behavior, no study has investigated the influence of repetitive song aspects in songbirds. We hypothesized that delayed auditory feedback would induce song sequencing changes and that a concurrent large pitch shift would partially ameliorate these induced changes by delayed auditory findings. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that delayed auditory feedback induces robust changes in repeated syllable distributions and transition probabilities at divergent branchpoints. A large pitch shift significantly reduced induced changes by delayed auditory feedback. Although not significant, a large pitch shift concurrent with delayed auditory feedback appeared to induce smaller magnitude of changes compared to delayed auditory feedback. These findings together support our hypothesis and fill a gap in the literature by examining the combination of auditory feedback characteristics on birdsong sequencing.

Table of Contents

List of Figures.........................................................................................1

Introduction...........................................................................................2

Methods.................................................................................................9

Results..................................................................................................14

Discussion.............................................................................................21

References.............................................................................................25

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