Bird Song: Perception, Learning and Function

比彻博士的研究将鸟鸣作为交流系统的模型。鸟鸣具有相当广泛的科学价值，因为它已被证明是研究学习和大脑-行为关系的单一最佳模型系统，涉及自然发生的复杂行为。此外，鸟鸣和人类语言之间还有许多惊人的相似之处，包括发育和神经方面的相似之处。比彻博士的方法在从感知的角度考虑歌曲传播系统方面是独一无二的。以前的研究主要集中在信号上，而通常忽略了动物的感觉-知觉系统对这些信号进行的转换。近年来已经开发了一些方法，这些方法允许研究人员通过训练一组动物以指示该组中所有可能的对的一对刺激之间的感知相似性来表征该组动物的一组刺激的感知维度。比彻博士将使用这些和相关的方法来描绘歌雀歌唱系统的感知维度，歌雀是一种歌声特别复杂和多样的物种。为了检验经验在正常鸣叫发育过程中的作用，比彻博士将会比较养在一起的鸟类和没有听到正常物种鸣叫的鸟类。后者成年后会唱异常的歌声，比彻博士希望能证明它们对歌声的感知也是异常的。他还将研究歌曲知觉，因为它与歌曲在自然环境中的使用有关，例如在识别邻居时。他对女性对歌曲的感知特别感兴趣，因为几乎对女性的歌曲学习知之甚少，因为她们成年后不唱歌。比彻博士的总体目标是通过提供关于歌曲学习中迄今被忽视的知觉方面的信息，来增进我们的理解，并增加这个模型系统的实用性。

Dr. Beecher's research examines bird song as a model communication system. Bird song is of considerable general scientific interest because it has proved to be the single best model system, involving a naturally-occurring complex behavior, for the study of learning and for the study of brain-behavior relationships. In addition, there are many surprising parallels between bird song and human language, including developmental and neurological similarities. Dr. Beecher's approach is unique in considering the song communication system from a perceptual point of view. Previous research has focussed on the signals, and has generally ignored the transformations performed on these signals by the animal's sensory-perceptual system. Methods have been developed in recent years that allow researchers to characterize the perceptual dimensions of a set of stimuli for an animal by training it to indicate the perceived similarity between a pair of stimuli for all possible pairs in the set. Dr. Beecher will use these and related methods to map the perceptual dimensions of the song system of the song sparrow, a species with a particularly complex and varied song. To examine the role of experience in the development of normal song, Dr. Beecher will compare birds raised with and birds raised without hearing normal species song. The latter birds sing abnormal song as adults, and Dr. Beecher expects to show that their song perception is abnormal as well. He will also examine song perception as it relates to the use of song in natural contexts, such as in the recognition of neighbors. He is particularly interested in song perception by females, since virtually nothing is known about song learning in females as they do not sing as adults. Dr. Beecher's general goal is to advance our understanding and increase the utility of this model system by providing information on the heretofore neglected perceptual side of song learning.