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

Bird fanciers have known for centuries that songbirds learn their songs. This learning has
striking parallels to speech acquisition: like humans, birds must hear the sounds of adults …

The voices of birds have always been a source of fascination. Nature's Music brings together
some of the world's experts on birdsong, to review the advances that have taken place in our …

Overview 640[Auk, Vol. 123 be adjusted to reduce masking,(2) how do these adjustments
come about, and (3) what are the consequences of these changes for individual fitness and …

Significant trial-by-trial variation persists even in the most practiced skills. One prevalent
view is that such variation is simply 'noise'that the nervous system is unable to control or that …

Brain mechanisms for communication must establish a correspondence between sensory
and motor codes used to represent the signal. One idea is that this correspondence is …

Mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are often used as behavioral readouts of internal
states, to measure effects of social and pharmacological manipulations, and for behavioral …

Songbirds are one of the best-studied examples of vocal learners. Learning of both human
speech and birdsong depends on hearing. Once learned, adult song in many species …

Young birds learn to sing by using auditory feedback to compare their own vocalizations to a
memorized or innate song pattern; ifthey are deafened as juveniles, they will not develop …

We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of
language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure …