Wild Birds Use an Ordering Rule to Decode Novel Call Sequences
Wild Birds Use an Ordering Rule to Decode Novel Call Sequences
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.031
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发表时间：
2017-08-07
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Griesser, Michael
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Suzuki, Toshitaka N.;Wheatcroft, David;Griesser, Michael
人类语言的生成能力取决于语法规则，例如词序，它使我们能够产生和理解甚至是新颖的单词组合[1-3]。几种鸟类和哺乳动物产生叫声序列[4-6]，并且，就像人类句子中的单词一样，它们的顺序可能会影响接受者的反应[7]。然而，尚不清楚动物是否使用呼叫排序从真正新颖的序列中提取意义。在这里，我们使用一种新的实验方法来测试一种野生鸟类，日本山雀（Parus minor）。当日本山雀听到相同的警报和招募叫声时，它们会被吸引去围攻捕食者，这些叫声按警报-招募序列[7]排列。它们也会响应混合物种群中异种个体的招募召唤[8,9]。使用实验回放，我们评估了它们对人工序列的反应，其中它们自己的警报呼叫与异种招募呼叫组合成不同的顺序。我们发现日本山雀对混合物种的警觉性招募呼叫序列和它们自己的警觉性招募序列的反应相似。然而，重要的是，山雀很少对叫声顺序颠倒的混合物种序列做出反应。因此，日本山雀使用排序规则从新的呼叫序列中提取复合意义。这些结果表明动物交流系统与人类语言之间存在新的平行关系，为探索动物声音序列的顺序规则和组合性的进化开辟了新的途径。
The generative power of human language depends on grammatical rules, such as word ordering, that allow us to produce and comprehend even novel combinations of words [1-3]. Several species of birds and mammals produce sequences of calls [4-6], and, like words in human sentences, their order may influence receiver responses [7]. However, it is unknown whether animals use call ordering to extract meaning from truly novel sequences. Here, we use a novel experimental approach to test this in a wild bird species, the Japanese tit (Parus minor). Japanese tits are attracted to mobbing a predator when they hear conspecific alert and recruitment calls ordered as alert-recruitment sequences [7]. They also approach in response to recruitment calls of heterospecific individuals in mixed-species flocks [8, 9]. Using experimental playbacks, we assess their responses to artificial sequences in which their own alert calls are combined into different orderings with heterospecific recruitment calls. We find that Japanese tits respond similarly to mixed-species alert-recruitment call sequences and to their own alert-recruitment sequences. Importantly, however, tits rarely respond to mixed-species sequences in which the call order is reversed. Thus, Japanese tits extract a compound meaning from novel call sequences using an ordering rule. These results demonstrate a new parallel between animal communication systems and human language, opening new avenues for exploring the evolution of ordering rules and compositionality in animal vocal sequences.