Auditory temporal pattern learning by songbirds using maximal stimulus diversity and minimal repetition
Auditory temporal pattern learning by songbirds using maximal stimulus diversity and minimal repetition
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DOI：
10.1007/s10071-014-0732-5
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发表时间：
2014-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Gentner, Timothy Q.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Comins, Jordan A.;Gentner, Timothy Q.
复杂的声学元素的顺序模式是鸟鸣和其他形式的声音交流的一个显著特征。对于欧洲八哥，一种鸣禽物种，当歌曲成分(称为基调)的时间组织遵循每个歌手的正常模式时，个体的声音识别能力会得到改善。这种对自然基序的敏感性可能是观察到的，即八哥也可以学习更复杂的、非自然的基序模式。或者，有人提出，抽象主题模式规则的明显习得反映了先前实验中使用的训练条件的特殊性。也就是说，母题模式不是通过识别模式之间的时间结构差异来学习的，而是通过在所使用的一小组训练和测试刺激中识别偶然特征(例如，声音线索)来学习的。在这里，我们通过询问是否可以学习区分两个任意的图案模式来研究这种可能性，当每个图案的唯一示例在每次试验中呈现时。我们的结果表明，抽象的主题模式规则可以从试验唯一的刺激中获得，并表明与使用小得多的刺激子集的训练相比，这种训练导致了更好的模式泛化。
The sequential patterning of complex acoustic elements is a salient feature of bird song and other forms of vocal communication. For European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), a songbird species, individual vocal recognition is improved when the temporal organization of song components (called motifs) follows the normal patterns of each singer. This sensitivity to natural motif sequences may underlie observations that starlings can also learn more complex, unnatural motif patterns. Alternatively, it has been proposed that the apparent acquisition of abstract motif patterning rules instead reflects idiosyncrasies of the training conditions used in prior experiments. That is, that motif patterns are learned not by recognizing differences in temporal structures between patterns, but by identifying serendipitous features (e.g., acoustical cues) in the small sets of training and testing stimuli used. Here, we investigate this possibility, by asking whether starlings can learn to discriminate between two arbitrary motif patterns, when unique examples of each pattern are presented on every trial. Our results demonstrate that abstract motif patterning rules can be acquired from trial-unique stimuli and suggest that such training leads to better pattern generalization compared with training with much smaller stimulus subsets.