The Value Of Singing To Yourself

Jon T. Sakata and Michael S. Brainard
We have something in common with birds when it comes to how we communicate. Both species rely on hearing the sounds they produce to learn and maintain accurate vocalization, a built-in quality-control mechanism. Likewise, loss of hearing leads to deterioration of speech and song. In humans, auditory feedback contributes to speech in real time, and so it is for birdsong, as Sakata and Brainard show this week. They recorded target "syllables" from the songs of the Bengalese finch and played them back at a short and fixed latency, so that the singing bird heard the computerized feedback superimposed onto its own song. When the feedback was altered, birds changed their normal tempo and sequencing of specific syllables. This behavioral response to momentary targeted disruptions was 80 ms or about the duration of an individual syllable, suggesting rapid feedback of auditory information to the song premotor circuitry.

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The Value Of Singing To Yourself