Bird Song: Perception, Learning and Function

比彻博士的研究将鸟鸣作为一种典型的交流系统。鸟类鸣叫引起了广泛的科学兴趣，因为它已被证明是研究学习和研究大脑-行为关系的唯一最佳模型系统，涉及自然发生的复杂行为。此外，鸟类鸣叫和人类语言之间还有许多惊人的相似之处，包括发育和神经系统的相似性。比彻博士的方法是独特的，从感性的角度来考虑歌曲传播系统。以前的研究主要集中在这些信号上，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，研究人员开发了一种方法，使研究人员能够通过训练动物来表明对集合中所有可能对的一对刺激之间的感知相似性，从而表征一组刺激的感知维度。Beecher博士将使用这些和相关的方法来绘制雀鸣系统的感知维度，雀鸣是一种特别复杂和多样的鸣声物种。为了研究经验在正常鸣声发展过程中的作用，比彻博士将比较听过正常鸣声的鸟类和听不到正常鸣声的鸟类。后一种鸟成年后会发出不正常的叫声，比彻博士希望证明它们的鸣声感知也不正常。他还将研究歌曲感知，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。他对女性的歌曲感知特别感兴趣，因为实际上我们对女性的歌曲学习一无所知，因为她们成年后不会唱歌。Beecher博士的总体目标是通过提供迄今为止被忽视的歌曲学习感知方面的信息，提高我们对这个模型系统的理解和效用。

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.