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Neural processing of auditory feedback during vocal practice in a songbird

Author

Listed:
  • Georg B. Keller

    (Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Richard H. R. Hahnloser

    (Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract

Striking the right note Songbirds are vocal learners, in that they learn to imitate the song of a tutor. In a noisy colony, this means that individual birds need to differentiate self-generated vocalizations from other sounds so that they can accurately match the learned song template. For this reason it has long been assumed that songbirds — like humans —possess a brain mechanism capable of detecting vocal errors. George Keller and Richard Hahnloser now report the identification of neurons in the auditory forebrain of zebrafinch that specifically respond to either song or playback perturbations, suggesting the existence of a computational error-checking function in the forebrain auditory areas. This confirms a long-established theoretical concept — the theory of internal models — as a basis of vocal imitation learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg B. Keller & Richard H. R. Hahnloser, 2009. "Neural processing of auditory feedback during vocal practice in a songbird," Nature, Nature, vol. 457(7226), pages 187-190, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:457:y:2009:i:7226:d:10.1038_nature07467
    DOI: 10.1038/nature07467
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    Cited by:

    1. Sepp Kollmorgen & Richard H R Hahnloser, 2014. "Dynamic Alignment Models for Neural Coding," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-19, March.

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