Abstract
We studied human melody perception and production in a songbird in the light of current concepts from the cognitive neuroscience of music. Bullfinches are the species best known for learning melodies from human teachers. The study is based on the historical data of 15 bullfinches, raised by 3 different human tutors and studied later by Jürgen Nicolai (JN) in the period 1967–1975. These hand-raised bullfinches learned human folk melodies (sequences of 20–50 notes) accurately. The tutoring was interactive and variable, starting before fledging and JN continued it later throughout the birds’ lives. All 15 bullfinches learned to sing alternately melody modules with JN (alternate singing). We focus on the aspects of note sequencing and timing studying song variability when singing the learned melody alone and the accuracy of listening-singing interactions during alternatively singing with JN by analyzing song recordings of 5 different males. The following results were obtained as follows: (1) Sequencing: The note sequence variability when singing alone suggests that the bullfinches retrieve the note sequence from the memory as different sets of note groups (=modules), as chunks (sensu Miller in Psychol Rev 63:81–87, 1956). (2) Auditory–motor interactions, the coupling of listening and singing the human melody: Alternate singing provides insights into the bird’s brain melody processing from listening to the actually whistled part of the human melody by JN to the bird’s own accurately singing the consecutive parts. We document how variable and correctly bullfinches and JN alternated in their singing the note sequences. Alternate singing demonstrates that melody-singing bullfinches did not only follow attentively the just whistled note contribution of the human by auditory feedback, but also could synchronously anticipate singing the consecutive part of the learned melody. These data suggest that both listening and singing may depend on a single learned human melody representation (=coupling between perception and production).
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abe K, Watanabe D (2011) Songbirds possess the spontaneous ability to discriminate syntactic rules. Nat Neurosci 14(8):1067–1074
Brehm CB (1832) Handbuch für den Liebhaber der Stuben-, Haus-und aller werthen Vögel. Voigt, Illmenau
Brown S, Martinez MJ, Hodges DA, Fox PT, Parsons LM (2004) The song system of the human brain. Cogn Brain Res 20(3):363–375
Brown S, Martinez MJ, Parsons LM (2006) Music and language side by side in the brain: a PET study of the generation of melodies and sentences. Eur J Neurosci 23:2791–2803
Burt JM, O‘Loghlen AL, Templeton CN, Campbell SE, Beecher MD (2007) Assessing the importance of social factors in bird song learning: at test using computer-simulated tutors. Ethology 113:917–925
Chen JL, Penhune VC, Zatorre RJ (2009) The role of auditory and premotor cortex in sensorimotor transformation. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1169:15–34
Fujimoto H, Hasegawa T, Watanabe D (2011) Neural coding of syntactic structure in learned vocalizations in the songbird. J Neurosci 31(27):10023–10033
Griffin DR, Speck GB (2004) New evidence of animal consciousness. Anim Cogn 7:5–18
Güttinger HR, Dobmeyer S, Schwickert S, Nicolai J (2001) Individual learning and species-uniform song program in the bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). In: Kotrschal K, Müller G, Winkler H (eds) Filander, Fürth, pp 313–329
Güttinger HR, Turner T, Dobmeyer S, Nicolai J (2002) Melodiewahrnehmung und Wiedergabe beim Gimpel: untersuchungen an liederpfeifenden und Kanariengesang imitierenden Gimpeln (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). J Ornthol 143:303–318
Haanstra B (1972) Film fragment from: Bij de Beesten af, “Instinct for survival”
Hamersley J (1717) The bird fancyer’s delight. R. Meares, London (reprinted by Schott, Mainz, 1954)
Henschel G (1903) Bullfinch and canary. Nature 67:609–610
Holden GH (1895) Canaries and cage birds. Holden, Boston
Hultsch H, Todt D (1989) Memorization and reproduction of songs in nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos): evidence for package formation. J Comp Physiol A 165:197–203
Hultsch H, Todt D (1992) The serial order effect in the song acquisition of birds: relevance of exposure frequency to song models. Anim Behav 44:590–592
Janata P, Grafton ST (2003) Swinging in the brain: shared neural substrates for behaviors related to sequencing and music. Nat Neurosci 6:682–687
Jarvis ED, Güntürkün O, Bruce L, Csillag H et al (2005) Avian brains and the new understanding of vertebrate brain evolution. Nat Rev Neurosci 6:151–159
Koehler E, Keysers Ch, Umilta MA, Forgassi L, Gallese V, Rizzolatti G (2002) Hearing sounds, understanding actions: action representation in mirror neurons. Science 297:846–848
Lichau KL (1989) Zur Geschichte der liederpfeifenden Dompfaffen im Vogelsberg Ge. Welt 113(17–18):45–47
Miller G (1956) The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychol Rev 63:81–87
Naumann JF (1900) Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas, Bd III: Lerchen, Stelzen, Waldsänger und Finkenvögel. Köhler, Gera-Untermhaus
Nelson DA, Marler P (1994) Selection-based learning in song development. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 91:10498–10501
Nicolai J (1959) Familientradition in der Gesangsentwicklung des Gimpels (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). J Ornithol 100:39–46
Nicolai J (1969) Akustische Gestaltwahrnehmung, Fehlerkorrektur und Wechselsingen bei Gimpel. In: Bezzel E (ed) Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft, 81. Jahresversammlung (1968) zu Innsbruck (Sitzungsbericht). J Ornithol 110:514
Pernau FA (1768) Gründliche Anweisung aller Arten von Vögeln zu fangen, einzustellen, abzurichten, zahm zu machen, ihre Eigenschaften zu erkennen, ihnen fremden Gesang zu lernen. Monath, Nürnberg
Prather JF, Peters S, Nowicki S, Mooney R (2008) Precise auditory-vocal mirroring in neurons for learned vocal communication. Nature 451:305–310
Rizzolatti G, Craighero L (2004) The mirror-neuron system. Annu Rev Neurosci 27:169–192
Rose GJ, Goller F, Gritton HJ, Plamondon SL, Baugh AT, Cooper BG (2004) Species-typical song in white-crowned sparrows tutored with only phrase pairs. Nature 432:753–758
Sakai K, Hikosaka O, Nakamura K (2004) Emergence of rhythm during motor learning. Trends Cogn Sci 8(12):547–553
Seibt U, Wickler W (2000) ‘Sympathetic song’: the silent and the overt vocal repertoire, exemplified with a dueting pair of the African slate-coloured Boubou. Laniarius funebris Ethology 106:795–809
Specht R (2000) Avisoft-SASLab Pro. Sound analysis and synthesis laboratory. Version 422
Suge R, Okanoya K (2010) Perceptual chunking in self-produced songs of Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata var. domestica). Anim Cogn 13:515–523
Terrace H (2001) Chunking and serially organized behavior in pigeons, monkey and humans. In Cook RG (ed) Avian visual cognition. Comparative Cognition Press, Medford, MA. www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/avc/terrace/
Thorpe WH (1972) Duetting and antiphonal song in birds: its extend and significance. Brill, Leiden
Tierney AT, Russo FA, Patel AD (2011) The motor origins of human and avian song structure. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:15510–15515
Wallace GW, Rowan JD, Fountain S (2008) Determinants of phrasing effects in rat serial pattern learning. Anim Cogn 11:199–214
Williams H, Staples K (1972) Syllable chunking in Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song. J Comp Psychol 106:278–286
Zatorre RJ, Chen JL, Penhune VB (2007) When the brain plays music: auditor-motor interactions in music perception and production. Nat Rev Neurosci 8:547–558
Acknowledgments
We thank Christina Meier for very helpful and encouraging comments to improve the presentation of the results. Dr. Jean–Pierre Stockis from the department of mathematics of TU Kaiserslautern gave advices and did the statistical analyses. Thanks are also due to Tim R. Birkhead, Jessica Boffo, Manfred Gahr, Irene M. Pepperberg and Jeffry Tesselink for constructive comments on the earlier drafts and for correcting the English, and to three anonymous referees.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Jürgen Nicolai: Deceased in 2006.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Supplementary material 3 (MPG 21278 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nicolai, J., Gundacker, C., Teeselink, K. et al. Human melody singing by bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrula) gives hints about a cognitive note sequence processing. Anim Cogn 17, 143–155 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0647-6
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0647-6