The Rockefeller University - To learn to sing, choose a strategy

Betsy Hanson reports at The RU Scientist website:

As a young bird learns to sing, soft burbling gradually gives way to a crisp, distinct song. It's a process that takes weeks of study and practice.

Wan-Chun Liu, a postdoc in Fernando Nottebohm's Rockefeller lab, wants to know just how songbirds learn to chirp, whistle and trill. The birds, he says, may teach us a thing or two about how human infants learn, as well.

"Until now, no one has thought a lot about birds' learning strategies," says Fernando Nottebohm. "How, starting from their earliest food-begging calls, do they piece together a perfect song?"

The answer, according to new research from Nottebohm's laboratory, may depend on the birds' siblings. In the first study to analyze song-learning with birds kept in family groups, rather than isolation chambers, Liu and Nottebohm have found that zebra finch brothers take different approaches to learning the same song. Some finches focus on perfecting individual song "syllables," while others practice longer patterns called motifs. "The siblings try to avoid each other's style of song learning," says Liu....