Brain and Language: Insights from Songbirds
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Brain and Language: Insights from Songbirds Colline Poirier
description
Brain and Language: Insights from Songbirds. Colline Poirier. Vocal learning. Sensory: hearing the model (sensitive period) Sensory-motor: practicing + auditory feedback Maintenance: auditory feedback. Proto-syntax. Starling song. A: individual whistles - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of Brain and Language: Insights from Songbirds
Brain and Language: Insights
from Songbirds
Colline Poirier
Vocal learning• Sensory: hearing the model (sensitive period)• Sensory-motor: practicing + auditory feedback
• Maintenance: auditory feedback
Proto-syntaxStarling song
A: individual whistlesB, C, D : individual warbling motifs E, F, G: click trains superimposed to individual warbling motifsH, I : speci-specific high-pitched trills
Spoken language• Sequence of acoustically complex sounds
• Learned behaviour
• Meaningful order of sounds
• Referential function
OK
OK
Birdsong
No
OK
Gene expressionAnatomical connectivityFunctionality
Jarvis et al 2005, Nat Rev Neurosci
Avian Brain
Song control system
Songbird & MRI
Own song recognition
Own song selectivity inthe song control system
Own song selectivity inthe auditory pathway?
Birdsong: support of species and individual recognition
Own song selectivity: Experience-dependent mechanisms & Auditory feedback
Poirier et al., 2009, J. Neurosci
Own song recognition
Own song recognitionLateralized own song selectivity towards the right
side:
Reminiscent of:
song production neural auditory feedback control own voiceown cry
own face
Own song recognition
Own song selectivity at the midbrain level
Information processing about the identity of a subject through experience-dependent mechanisms, challenging the classical perception of sub-cortical regions as primitive and non-plastic structures.
Brain and Language
vocal learningLanguage precursors
