ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Vocal learning is constrained by the statistics of sensorimotor experience.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Biofeedback in dysphonia - progress and challenges.Brazilian journal of otorhinolaryngologyPooled it
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- Social context affects sequence modification learning in birdsong.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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- Learning the sound inventory of a complex vocal skill via an intrinsic reward.Science advances · 2024Article
- Recent Advances at the Interface of Neuroscience and Artificial Neural Networks.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Review
- Spontaneous variability predicts compensative motor response in vocal pitch control.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- General variability leads to specific adaptation toward optimal movement policies.Current biology : CB · 2022Article
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- Identifying distinct latent classes of pitch-shift response consistency: Evidence from manipulating the predictability of shift direction.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Back to feedback: aberrant sensorimotor control in music performance under pressure.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Balanced imitation sustains song culture in zebra finches.Nature communications · 2021Article
- A Modular Approach to Vocal Learning: Disentangling the Diversity of a Complex Behavioral Trait.Neuron · 2019Review
- Chance, long tails, and inference in a non-Gaussian, Bayesian theory of vocal learning in songbirds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Thalamostriatal and cerebellothalamic pathways in a songbird, the Bengalese finch.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2018Article
- What drives the perceptual change resulting from speech motor adaptation? Evaluation of hypotheses in a Bayesian modeling framework.PLoS computational biology · 2018Article
- Cingulate and cerebellar beta oscillations are engaged in the acquisition of auditory-motor sequences.Human brain mapping · 2017Article
- Article
- Dopaminergic Contributions to Vocal Learning.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The brain uses sensory feedback to correct behavioral errors. Larger errors by definition require greater corrections, and many models of learning assume that larger sensory feedback errors drive larger motor changes. However, an alternative perspective is that larger errors drive learning less effectively because such errors fall outside the range of errors normally experienced and are therefore unlikely to reflect accurate feedback. This is especially crucial in vocal control because auditory feedback can be contaminated by environmental noise or sensory processing errors. A successful control strategy must therefore rely on feedback to correct errors while disregarding aberrant auditory signals that would lead to maladaptive vocal corrections. We hypothesized that these constraints result in compensation that is greatest for smaller imposed errors and least for larger errors. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated the pitch of auditory feedback in singing Bengalese finches. We found that learning driven by larger sensory errors was both slower than that resulting from smaller errors and showed less complete compensation for the imposed error. Additionally, we found that a simple principle could account for these data: the amount of compensation was proportional to the overlap between the baseline distribution of pitch production and the distribution experienced during the shift. Correspondingly, the fraction of compensation approached zero when pitch was shifted outside of the song's baseline pitch distribution. Our data demonstrate that sensory errors drive learning best when they fall within the range of production variability, suggesting that learning is constrained by the statistics of sensorimotor experience.
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