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PSY 2364Animal Communication

Development of Communication

Fixed action patterns

European ethology

Development of Communication

• Role of learning in development

• Classical conditioning (Pavlov)

• Operant conditioning (Skinner)

American behaviorist psychology

Deprivation experiments

• Kaspar Hauser - “wild child”

• Bird song development (chaffinch) – W.H. Thorpe

– Effects of captive rearing

– Effects of induced deafness

Other examples

• Visual cliff experiments– Tree-nesters (wood ducks) vs. ground nesters

• Hoarding of nuts by squirrels

• Fear of snakes in primates

Modes of learning

• Phenotypic plasticity– Different phenotypes appear in different

environmental conditions

• Individual learning

• Social learning

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Modes of learning

• Single stimulus learning– Habituation – reduced response to a stimulus

over time

– Sensitization – increased response to a stimulus over time

Food aversions

• Garter snake (Thamnophis elegans)– Inland populations–aversion to banana slugs

– Coastal populations–prefer slugs as food

– Preferences shown by newborn snakes

Social isolationInterpreting deprivation experiments

• Deprivation causes changes in behavior– But … what has the animal been deprived of ?

– Learning only environmental factor

– Dichotomy of innate vs. acquired behavior?

• “Genes and environment are 100% important in the development of behavior”

– Donald Hebb

Development of vocal sounds

• Which birds sing? What is a songbird?

Passeriformes(perching birds)

Tyranni(suboscines)

Oscines(songbirds)

Order

Suborder

Sub-order Tyranni

• Eurylaimidae: broadbills • Philepittidae: asities • Sapayoidae: Broad-billed Sapayoa • Pittidae: pittas • Furnariidae: ovenbirds and woodcreepers • Thamnophilidae: antbirds • Formicariidae: antpittas, antthrushes, tapaculos • Rhinocryptidae: tapaculos • Conopophagidae: gnateaters and gnatpittas • Tyrannidae: tyrant-flycatchers • Cotingidae: cotingas and Sharpbill • Pipridae: manakins

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

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Bird songs and calls

• Bird song is a complex form of vocalization produced in most species by males; primary functions are territorial advertisement and mate attraction.

Bird songs and calls

• Calls (call notes) are usually simpler in structure, given by both males and females as well as young birds. Birds may have a dozen or more calls given in particular contexts, each conveying different kinds of information. Not always easy to distinguish songs from calls (e.g. Blue Jays)

Evidence from vocal mimicry

• Vocal mimicry – ability to imitate other birds or human speech (parrots, mynahs, thrashers); provides direct evidence for vocal learning.

• Why are some groups of birds more effective mimics?

A little bird told me…

• Talking birds: – Quaker parrots

Sparkie Williams

• British budgerigar trained by Mrs. Mattie Williams of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1954.

• 550 word vocabulary, could recite several four-line nursery rhymes.

mms://audio.bl.uk/media/wildlife/sparkie01.wma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uH1zSptAGo

Birds learning human tunes

• Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) singing German folk tunes.

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European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/European_Starling/

A little bird told me…

• Talking birds: – African Grey Parrots

Pinnipeds (seals and allies)

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora

Family: Phocidae (true seals) Genus: Phoca

Species: vitulina

Harbor Seal

Hoover

• Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) from New England Aquarium, Boston

• Normal range: coastal waters in northern hemisphere; weighs up to 250 pounds and lives about 20 years.

• Hoover was raised as a pet and learned to imitate people when less than a year old. He was transferred to the Aquarium at 4 months of age and lived there until he died of old age in 1985.

Hoover Lyrebirds (family Menuridae)

Menura novaehollandiaehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Superb_Lyrebird#p004hgk8

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Song development in birds

• Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)

Chaffinch song

Time =>

Fre

qu

ency

=>

Chaffinch song

Normal song

Acoustic isolation

http://www.bl.uk/listentonature/specialinterestlang/langofbirds12.html

Song development in birds

• Hand-reared chaffinches (W.H. Thorpe)– Males sing abnormal songs as adults

– Tape tutors: songs heard at age 1-2 months are precisely reproduced when adults

– Live tutors: some birds do not learn from tapes

– Inter–species and intra–species song learning

– Effects of deafening

– Species differences: chaffinches vs. doves

Vocal learning in birds

• Many species of songbirds learn their songs

• Depends on discrete, dedicated neural circuits

• Phases of song development

• Species differences– Sensitive periods, timing of vocal learning

– Sex differences

– Number and complexity of learned songs

– Seasonality of song behavior

Song production and motor control

• Song production depends on complex, hierarchically organized motor programs

• Role of auditory feedback in song development

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Song production and motor control

• Gonadal steroid hormones have an important effect on song development and control

• The development of bird song involves a high degree of plasticity including ongoingneurogenesis and seasonal changes.

Behavioral Genetics

• Mendel’s laws • segregation and independent assortment

• Alleles• dominant and recessive

• genotype and phenotype

• polygenic traits

• quantitative trait locus

Ruff (Philomachus pugnax)

• Independent males • Satellite males

Male Ruffs displaying at a lek 16%

Swamp and Song Sparrows

Swamp SparrowSong Sparrow

Dialect variation in white-crowned sparrows

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White‐crowned_Sparrow/sounds

Dialect variation

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Song dialects

• 12 dialects of the Puget Sound white-crowned sparrow

Source: http://blb.biosci.ohio-state.edu/nelson.html

Dialect variation in bird song

Learned or inherited?

Effects of rearing in isolation

Template matching

Effects of deafening (auditory feedback)

Stages in song development: white-crowned sparrow

• memorization phase (10-50 days of age)

• subsong phase (150 days of age)

• overproduction phase ("plastic song")

• song crystallization

• full song (200 days of age)

• action-based learning and selectiveattrition

Stages in song development: white-crowned sparrow

• Memory-based learning – During the memorization phase (10-50 days of age) young male white-crowned sparrows listen passively to species-specific songs without responding.

• Hearing the species-specific song is essential for normal song production in adulthood.

Stages in song development: white-crowned sparrow

• Action-based learning: Later, during the “plastic song” stage (150-200 days) the male bird improvises and produces many variants of the song. Song crystallization involves selective attrition, dropping components of the song that do not match the dialect and/or the song patterns of neighboring birds.

Song template

• Young birds deprived of the experience of hearing their species-specific song develop a distorted song (although some aspects of the normal song are present).

• Either tape tutors or live tutors provide the auditory input needed for normal song.

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Song template

• White-crowned sparrows deafened after the song memorization stage never develop normal song (Konishi, 1965). They must hear themselves sing in order to develop a crystallized version of the song they experienced as nestlings.

Song template

• Conclusion: Translating the memorized song into a motor program involves ongoing comparison between an internalized template of the song and the auditory feedback from the bird’s own voice.

Memory-based learning (10-50 days)Species-specific song is heard

Template matched to song No song output

Internal template

Action-based learning (150-200 days)

Song output Hears own song

Song matched to template

Song crystallization

Species differences in song development

• Open-ended learners: new song patterns are developed beyond the first year.

• Typically, new songs are developed at the beginning of a new nesting season. Examples: Eurasian starling, canary

Species differences in song development

• Age-limited or sensitive period learners: Song memorization is limited to the first year of life; no new songs are acquired in adulthood. Examples: white-crowned sparrow, zebra finch.

Auditory feedback

• Early studies showed little effect of deafening in age-limited learners once they reach adulthood.

• Later studies showed a different pattern in open-ended learners: in canaries, deafened adults show song deficits within a few weeks of losing their hearing.

• Conclusion: auditory feedback can help to maintain normal song even after song crystallization.

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Species differences in song development

• Not all species fit neatly into the two-way distinction between age-limited and open-ended learners.

• There may be species differences in the dependence on auditory feedback and the degree of song crystallization.

African elephants

• Elephants live in close-knit, long-lasting groups and are in constant communication.

• In adult male elephants, testosterone levels are elevated for one month each year.

• During this time they compete aggressively with other males to establish their dominance status and to gain access to females.

• This condition is called musth.

African elephants

• Adult male elephants produce an acrid, penetrating odor from a gland on their faces.

• During musth elephants become very aggressive towards other elephants (and, in captivity, toward humans)

African elephants

• Young male Indian elephants in musth (and possibly African elephants as well) produce a sweet, honey-like scent “like a mixture of flowers.” In India this state is called moda.

• Moda males seem to be broadcasting immaturity and unwillingness to fight for dominance and mates. Older musth males avoid or ignore moda males (and vice versa).

African elephant• In response to the musth rumble of a high-ranking

male, other musth males approached the speaker aggressively, whereas non-musth males walked away from the stimulus.

• The calls of estrous females attracted musth males who approached the speaker rapidly, while non-musth males listened and then walked away.

• Females responded to the musth rumbles of males by approaching the speaker, vocalizing or secreting from the temporal glands.

Poole JH (1999). Signals and assessment in African elephants: evidence from playback experiments. Animal Behaviour 58(1): 185-193.

Elephants

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia Order: Proboscidea

Family: Elephantidae Genus: Elephas

Species: maximus

Asian Elephant

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An Asian Elephant Imitates Human Speech

Angela S. Stoeger, Daniel Mietchen, Sukhun Oh, Shermin de Silva, Christian T. Herbst, Soowhan Kwon, W. Tecumseh Fitch, An Asian Elephant Imitates Human Speech, Current Biology, Available online 1 November 2012)

Giraffe Odor• Older male giraffes are known to transmit a

powerful, unpleasant odor, detectable at a large distance.

• Wood (Science, 2002) has discovered that chemicals in the giraffe’s hair contain a range of antibiotics and parasite repellants. Among other things, these compounds stunt the growth of microbes that cause athelete’s foot.

• Giraffe's scent may also serve a sexual function, perhaps serving as an indicator of resistance to disease and infection.