Auditory processing of social cues in a songbird
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1
University of California, Berkeley, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, United States
Intra species communication in social songbirds can serve many diverse roles including advertisement of state (e.g begging call), advertisement of intent (e.g. aggressive call) and maintenance of familiar relationships (e.g. contact call). Neurophysiological studies of the songbird auditory system have mainly recorded neural activity in response to synthetic stimuli (such as white noise, pure tones) or song. Although these studies have increased our knowledge of how sounds features are represented in the nervous system, communication calls distinguish themselves not only by their acoustical properties but also by the information content of the message; calls that are relatively similar in acoustical structure could have very different meanings and vice-versa. The impact of the information content (semantic and/or social) on auditory perception and its underlying neurophysiological processes remains unexplored. To study how the auditory system could differentially treat signals that have different social meanings we need to investigate the perception of vocalizations that are used in clearly distinct social contexts. Birds sing in a restricted range of social contexts (territory establishment and maintenance, mate attraction). However, songbirds like the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) do not only utter song but also a full repertoire of calls that, from a functional point of view, range far more widely than song (whine call: reproduction, alarm call: predator alarm, begging call: exchange of food, distance call and tet call: maintenance of group coherence and composition). Unfortunately, we know very little about call representation in the songbird auditory system.
In this study, we first constituted a vocalization library containing the entire repertoire of female and male, adult and young, zebra finches. Vocalizations of adults were extracted from recordings of 5 mixed-sex groups of freely interacting birds (total 26 adults). Vocalizations of young were obtained from recordings of single chicks freely interacting with their parents (total 20 chicks). Natural behaviors of birds were monitored during all recording sessions (total ≈ 200 hours). Based on these observations, we extracted and annotated individual vocalizations with the identity and sex of the emitter and the social context of emission. We obtained a library of several thousands of vocalizations classified in 10 categories of various social values (courtship song, aggressive call, distress call, alarm call, begging call, 2 nest calls and 3 contact calls). Then, we conducted conditioning experiments to investigate the ability of birds to discriminate: (I) between these categories of vocalization and, (II) between different emitters irrespective of the vocalization category produced by the emitter. Finally, we investigated the neural representation of these categories of vocalizations. Using electrodes arrays, we performed bilateral extracellular recordings in the primary auditory area, namely Field L, and in the two secondary auditory areas, namely NCM (nidopallium caudo-medial) and CM (caudal mesopallium). We obtained sustainable neural activity in response to all vocalization categories even to the softer and shorter calls. In addition, some neurons were selectively activated by particular call category. Although these are preliminary results, further analysis will reveal more about social call perception in the superior auditory areas of the zebra finch.
Keywords:
audition,
conditioning experiments,
Electrophysiology,
extra-cellular recordings,
repertoire,
Social Behavior,
social calls,
songbird
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for participant symposium and student poster award)
Topic:
Sensory: Audition
Citation:
Elie
JE and
Theunissen
FE
(2012). Auditory processing of social cues in a songbird.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00348
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Received:
30 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Julie E Elie, University of California, Berkeley, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, Berkeley, California, 94720, United States, julie.elie@berkeley.edu