The complex and melodic nature of many birds' songs has raised interest in potential
parallels between avian vocal sequences and human speech. The similarities between …

In his pioneering research on the neural mechanisms of filial imprinting, Gabriel Horn has
gone a long way to fulfilling Karl Lashley's dream of finding the 'engram'or memory trace in …

Abstract Language as a computational cognitive mechanism appears to be unique to the
human species. However, there are remarkable behavioral similarities between song …

Multimodal signalling can improve or maximize information exchange. A challenge is to
show that two independent signals, such as vocalizations and visual displays, are …

How can we unravel the evolution of language, given that there is no direct evidence about
it? Rudolf Botha addresses this intriguing question in his fascinating new book. Inferences …

The growing field of evo‐devo is increasingly demonstrating the complexity of steps involved
in genetic, intracellular regulatory, and extracellular environmental control of the …

Songbirds are a powerful model to study vocal learning given that aspects of the underlying
behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms are analogous in many ways to mechanisms …

In this article, we address the tenability of Darwin's musical protolanguage, arguing that a
more compelling evolutionary scenario is one where a prosodic protolanguage is taken to …

Like many other songbird species, male zebra finches learn their song from a tutor early in
life. Song learning in birds has strong parallels with speech acquisition in human infants at …

Abstract Following Jerry Hogan, I argue that questions of function and evolution, and
questions of mechanism should be seen as logically distinct. Evolution is concerned with a …