A birdʼs own song contributes to conspecific song perception

Abstract

We investigated the role of developmental vocal experience in adult song perception by muting juvenile male zebra finches prior to song development and testing their behavioral responses to song playback as adults. Birds were raised in a normal social and acoustic environment. Non-treated sibling control birds demonstrated statistically significant phonotactic preferences for particular conspecific familiar or novel songs. Muted birds responded to playbacks at chance levels, showing no preferences for individual conspecific songs. These results suggest that the acquisition of a bird's own song may contribute to the perceptual processing, recognition, or discrimination of different conspecific songs.