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The Neuroethology of Birdsong

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Jon T. Sakata

    1. Department of Biology and Centre for Research in Brain, Language, and Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

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  2. Sarah C. Woolley

    1. Department of Biology and Centre for Research in Brain, Language, and Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

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  3. Richard R. Fay

    1. Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA

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  4. Arthur N. Popper

    1. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, USA

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  • Provides comprehensive, integrative, and comparative perspectives on birdsong
  • Underscores the importance of birdsong to biomedical research, evolutionary biology, and behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience
  • Aimed at graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established academics and neuroscientists who are interested in mechanisms of communication from an integrative and comparative perspective

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (SHAR, volume 71)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. Scaling the Levels of Birdsong Analysis

    • Jon T. Sakata, Sarah C. Woolley
    Pages 1-27

  3. Neural Circuits Underlying Vocal Learning in Songbirds

    • Jon T. Sakata, Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama
    Pages 29-63

  4. New Insights into the Avian Song System and Neuronal Control of Learned Vocalizations

    • Karagh Murphy, Koedi S. Lawley, Perry Smith, Jonathan F. Prather
    Pages 65-92

  5. The Song Circuit as a Model of Basal Ganglia Function

    • Arthur Leblois, David J. Perkel
    Pages 93-125

  6. Integrating Form and Function in the Songbird Auditory Forebrain

    • Sarah C. Woolley, Sarah M. N. Woolley
    Pages 127-155

  7. Hormonal Regulation of Avian Auditory Processing

    • Luke Remage-Healey
    Pages 157-174

  8. The Neuroethology of Vocal Communication in Songbirds: Production and Perception of a Call Repertoire

    • Julie E. Elie, Frédéric E. Theunissen
    Pages 175-209

  9. Linking Features of Genomic Function to Fundamental Features of Learned Vocal Communication

    • Sarah E. London
    Pages 211-244

  10. Vocal Performance in Songbirds: From Mechanisms to Evolution

    • Jeffrey Podos, Ha-Cheol Sung
    Pages 245-268
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Keywords

About this book

Vocal signals are central for social communication across a wide range of vertebrate species; consequently, it is critical to understand the mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and evolution of vocal communication. Songbirds are at the forefront of research into such neural mechanisms. Indeed, songbirds provide a particularly important model system for this endeavor because of the many parallels between birdsong and human speech. Specifically, (1) songbirds are one of the few vertebrate species that, like humans, learn their vocal signals during development, (2) the processes of song learning and control in songbirds shares many parallels with the process of speech acquisition in humans, and (3) there exist deep homologies between the circuits for the learning, control, and processing of vocal signals across songbirds and humans. In addition, because of the diversity of songbirds and song learning strategies, songbirds offer a powerful model system to use the comparative method to reveal mechanisms underlying the evolution of song learning and production. Taken together, research on songbirds can not only reveal general principles underlying vertebrate vocal communication but can also provide insight into potential mechanisms underlying the learning, control, and processing of speech. 

This volume will cover a range of topics in birdsong spanning multiple level of analysis.  Chapters will be authored by the world’s leading experts on birdsong and will provide comprehensive reviews of the processes underlying song learning, of the neural circuits for song learning and control as well as for the extraction and processing of song information, of the selection pressures underlying song evolution, and of genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the learning and evolution of song. The primary goals of this volume are to provide comprehensive, integrative, and comparative perspectives on birdsong and to underscore the importance of birdsong tobiomedical research, evolutionary biology, and behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience.The target audience of this volume will be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established academics and neuroscientists who are interested in mechanisms of communication from an integrative and comparative perspective. The volume is intended to function as a high-profile and contemporary reference on current work related to the learning, control, processing, and evolution of birdsong. This volume will have broad appeal to comparative and sensory biologists, neurophysiologists, and behavioral, systems, and cognitive neuroscientists who attend meetings such as the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Neuroethology, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Because of the relevance of birdsong research to understanding human speech, it is likely that the volume will also be of interest to speech researchers and clinicians researching communication, motor, and sensory processing disorders.


Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Biology and Centre for Research in Brain, Language, and Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Jon T. Sakata, Sarah C. Woolley

  • Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, USA

    Richard R. Fay

  • Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

About the editors

Dr. Jon T. Sakata is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada
Dr. Sarah C. Woolley is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada 

Dr. Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola, Chicago

Dr. Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park




Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Neuroethology of Birdsong

  • Editors: Jon T. Sakata, Sarah C. Woolley, Richard R. Fay, Arthur N. Popper

  • Series Title: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34683-6

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-34682-9Published: 20 March 2020

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-34683-6Published: 19 March 2020

  • Series ISSN: 0947-2657

  • Series E-ISSN: 2197-1897

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVIII, 268

  • Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations, 30 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Neurosciences, Otorhinolaryngology

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