ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Babbling opens the sensory phase for imitative vocal learning.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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5 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Altricial brains and the evolution of infant vocal learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Vocal taking turns is premature at birth and improved by the postnatal phonetic environment in marmosets.National science review · 2025Article
- Conserving avian vocal culture.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Birds and babies: Ontogeny of vocal learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Babbling opens the sensory phase for imitative vocal learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
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2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Zebra finches, a species of songbirds, learn to sing by creating an auditory template through the memorization of model songs (sensory learning phase) and subsequently translating these perceptual memories into motor skills (sensorimotor learning phase). It has been traditionally believed that babbling in juvenile birds initiates the sensorimotor phase while the sensory phase of song learning precedes the onset of babbling. However, our findings challenge this notion by demonstrating that testosterone-induced premature babbling actually triggers the onset of the sensory learning phase instead. We reveal that juvenile birds must engage in babbling and self-listening to acquire the tutor song as the template. Notably, the sensory learning of the template in songbirds requires motor vocal activity, reflecting the observation that prelinguistic babbling in humans plays a crucial role in auditory learning for language acquisition.
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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.