Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30279497›Full record

ArticleNature communications2018

Zebra finches identify individuals using vocal signatures unique to each call type.

Julie E Elie, Frédéric E Theunissen

Erratum issuedAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 62 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
62citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

62 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
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  10. Individual variation in animal communication: from species averages to unique voices.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025
    Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Detection of Individual Differences Encoded in Sequential Variations of Elements in Zebra Finch Songs.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  15. Article
  16. A Complex Acoustical Environment During Development Enhances Auditory Perception and Coding Efficiency in the Zebra Finch.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  17. Article
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2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Julie E ElieHelen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. julie.elie@berkeley.edu.
Frédéric E TheunissenHelen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. theunissen@berkeley.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8980-0650

Funding

Auditory Circuits for Interpreting Vocal Communication SignalsR01DC018321 · NIDCD · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · PI Frederic E. THEUNISSEN · 2020 to 2026
$2.5M
CRCNS: Hierarchical Computations for Vocal Communication.R01DC016783 · NIDCD · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · PI THEUNISSEN, FREDERIC E. · 2017 to 2019
$602k
NIDCD NIH HHS R01 DC016783NIDCD NIH HHS R01 DC018321U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) R01-016783
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Individual recognition is critical in social animal communication, but it has not been demonstrated for a complete vocal repertoire. Deciphering the nature of individual signatures across call types is necessary to understand how animals solve the problem of combining, in the same signal, information about identity and behavioral state. We show that distinct signatures differentiate zebra finch individuals for each call type. The distinctiveness of these signatures varies: contact calls bear strong individual signatures while calls used during aggressive encounters are less individualized. We propose that the costly solution of using multiple signatures evolved because of the limitations of the passive filtering properties of the birds' vocal organ for generating sufficiently individualized features. Thus, individual recognition requires the memorization of multiple signatures for the entire repertoire of conspecifics of interests. We show that zebra finches excel at these tasks.

Indexed as

Auditory PerceptionDiscrimination, PsychologicalFinchesRecognition, PsychologyVocalization, AnimalAnimalsFemaleMale

Identifiers

PMID30279497
PMCPMC6168511

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.