Vocalization is an ancient vertebrate trait essential to many forms of communication, ranging
from courtship calls to free verse. Vocalizations may be entirely innate and evoked by sexual …

Highlights•Genetic identification of brainstem neurons that gate mouse USVs.•Attractor
networks may convert auditory stimuli into vocal action.•The motor cortex plays a role in …

Humans and songbirds learn to sing or speak by listening to acoustic models, forming
auditory templates, and then learning to produce vocalizations that match the templates …

This chapter highlights the similarities and differences between learned song, in birds and
other animal models, and speech and song in humans, by reviewing the comparative …

Due to their extreme diversity in acoustic structure and sometimes high degree of
complexity, birdsongs are among the most prominent of all animal acoustic signals. How …

Highlights•Adaptive vocal development extends beyond imitation and template-
matching.•Songbirds and humans share the capacity to converge towards species-typical …

Although humans are unmatched in their capacity to produce speech and learn language,
comparative approaches in diverse animal models are able to shed light on the biological …

We do not know how vocal learning came to be, but it is such a salient trait in human
evolution that many have tried to imagine it. In primates this is difficult because we are the …

▪ Abstract Human speech and birdsong have numerous parallels. Both humans and
songbirds learn their complex vocalizations early in life, exhibiting a strong dependence on …

The use of vocalizations to communicate information and elaborate social bonds is an
adaptation seen in many vertebrate species. Human speech is an extreme version of this …