Song preferences in juvenile songbirds and their relationship to vocal learning Open Access
Rodríguez Saltos, Carlos Antonio (Fall 2019)
Abstract
Conspecific signals are attractive to their receivers, including those receivers that will eventually become senders. Vocal learners, such as songbirds, exemplify this point; when they are juveniles, they need to attend to the vocalizations of adults to accurately imitate them. In chapter 1 of this dissertation, I reviewed evidence that conspecific song is attractive to young songbirds and elaborated on the possible mechanisms by which that song may become attractive. In chapter 2, I tested the hypothesis that the degree to which a juvenile songbird is attracted to a song predicts the quality with which the juvenile will eventually imitate that song. I tested this hypothesis by measuring relative preferences of young zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) for two conspecific songs and evaluating the degree to which these songs were imitated. The test was conducted throughout most of the sensorimotor phase of song learning, during which zebra finches practice singing. Using operant conditioning, I gave the juveniles the choice to elicit playback of the song of their father (“father song”) or the song of another familiar adult (“neighbor song”). The birds elicited playback by pressing either of two keys, each one associated with a higher likelihood of playing either father song or neighbor song. I implemented a reinforcement schedule that not only allowed me to detect preference for a song, but also balanced the daily exposure of the birds to each song. Thus, I minimized any effects of exposure on learning. Immediately after isolation from caregivers, most birds preferred father song over neighbor song. Near the end of the sensorimotor phase, the vocalizations of most juveniles were more similar to father song than to neighbor song. The degree to which father song was preferred after isolation predicted the strength with which that song was imitated near the end of the sensorimotor phase. These results suggest that the attractiveness of a song early in song learning predicts the degree to which the song will be accurately imitated in adulthood. This study advances songbirds as model organisms to study the transition from being a receiver to becoming a sender.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: Conspecific song as an attractive stimulus to juvenile songbirds...1
Abstract...................................................................................................................2
Introduction............................................................................................................3
The role of early social experience........................................................................6
Innate attraction to conspecific song....................................................................8
Operant conditioning: an effective tool to test preferences for song..................16
Concluding remarks and future directions...........................................................17
Funding....................................................................................................................18
Acknowledgements................................................................................................19
CHAPTER 2: Relationships between the attractiveness of tutor song and
vocal learning in zebra finches..............................................................................26
Abstract...................................................................................................................27
Introduction............................................................................................................28
Materials and methods..........................................................................................32
Ethics statement.........................................................................................32
Finch husbandry.........................................................................................32
Operant conditioning..................................................................................32
Operant chamber....................................................................................32
Neighbor song.........................................................................................34
Playback stimuli......................................................................................35
Reinforcement schedule.........................................................................35
Reversal...................................................................................................37
Recording of vocalizations..........................................................................38
Data analysis................................................................................................38
Reconstructing developmental trajectories of song preference.........38
Estimation of imitation scores...............................................................41
Testing for a correlation between preference and imitation...............44
Results.....................................................................................................................45
Reconstructing developmental trajectories of song preference..............45
Imitation scores..........................................................................................46
Correlation between preference and imitation........................................47
Discussion................................................................................................................48
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................54
Figures.....................................................................................................................55
References...............................................................................................................63
Appendix.................................................................................................................76
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