How learning affects vocalizations is a key question in the study of animal communication
and human language. Parallel efforts in birds and humans have taught us much about how …

Prenatal auditory stimulation is known to critically affect the development of acoustic
preference and species recognition throughout ontogeny in birds. We focus our review on …

Songbirds are important models for understanding the mechanisms and fitness
consequences of imitative vocal learning. Although the effects of early-life environmental …

Understanding when learning begins is critical for identifying the factors that shape both the
developmental course and the function of information acquisition. Until recently, sufficient …

Vocal production learning (the capacity to learn to produce vocalizations) is a
multidimensional trait that involves different learning mechanisms during different temporal …

Across multiple taxa, prenatal exposure to rhythmic sound can promote neural development
and alter postnatal behavior. In recent studies using zebra finches, stimulating embryos with …

Nesting success tends to increase with age in birds, in part because older birds select more
concealed nest sites based on experience and/or an assessment of prevailing predation …

Individuals can exhibit strong consistencies in behaviours across time and contexts, referred
to as animal personalities. Yet studies linking personality differences measured in captivity …

Oscine songbirds are an ideal system for investigating how early experience affects vocal
behavior. Young songbirds face a challenging task: how to recognize and selectively learn …

Background Greater complexity of the learned vocal repertoire has been shown to increase
mating and territory defence success in songbirds. Vocal learning in some songbird species …