ArticleNature communications2017
Songbirds work around computational complexity by learning song vocabulary independently of sequence.
Article in Nature communications, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- A species rules syntax model accurately organizes birdsong syllables into songs.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Temporal organization of song modulates vocal learning.iScience · 2025Article
- The Temporal Organization of Learned Vocal Behavior Is Predicted by Species Rather Than Experience.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Article
- Development and Characterization of Primary Brain Cultures from Japanese Quail Embryos.Bio-protocol · 2024Article
- Learning the sound inventory of a complex vocal skill via an intrinsic reward.Science advances · 2024Article
- On growth and form of animal behavior.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2024Article
- Daily vocal exercise is necessary for peak performance singing in a songbird.Nature communications · 2023Article
- "The song remains the same": not really! Vocal flexibility in the song of the indris.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Article
- Zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) demonstrate cognitive flexibility in using phonology and sequence of syllables in auditory discrimination.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Generative models of birdsong learning link circadian fluctuations in song variability to changes in performance.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- A custom-made AAV1 variant (AAV1-T593K) enables efficient transduction of Japanese quail neurons in vitro and in vivo.Communications biology · 2023Article
- A juvenile locomotor program promotes vocal learning in zebra finches.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Evidence for cumulative cultural evolution in bird song.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- Neurally driven synthesis of learned, complex vocalizations.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
- Plasticity of stereotyped birdsong driven by chronic manipulation of cortical-basal ganglia activity.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
- Processes underlying complex patterns of song trait evolution in aEcology and evolution · 2021Article
- Learning compositional sequences with multiple time scales through a hierarchical network of spiking neurons.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
While acquiring motor skills, animals transform their plastic motor sequences to match desired targets. However, because both the structure and temporal position of individual gestures are adjustable, the number of possible motor transformations increases exponentially with sequence length. Identifying the optimal transformation towards a given target is therefore a computationally intractable problem. Here we show an evolutionary workaround for reducing the computational complexity of song learning in zebra finches. We prompt juveniles to modify syllable phonology and sequence in a learned song to match a newly introduced target song. Surprisingly, juveniles match each syllable to the most spectrally similar sound in the target, regardless of its temporal position, resulting in unnecessary sequence errors, that they later try to correct. Thus, zebra finches prioritize efficient learning of syllable vocabulary, at the cost of inefficient syntax learning. This strategy provides a non-optimal but computationally manageable solution to the task of vocal sequence learning.
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