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30 results for “vocal learning”
Bioacoustic Dataset of African and Florida Manatee Vocalizations for Machine Learning Applications, 2020-2022
This data package presents a comprehensive acoustic library of manatee vocalizations for machine learning (ML) and classifier development. It includes recordings from two species, African and Florida manatees, sampled across four locations. The species are combined due to the acoustic similarity of their vocalizations, providing a diverse and representative training set for ML algorithms. The dataset consists of 0.5-second WAV clips categorized as either containing manatee vocalizations (MV, n=18,129 clips) or not (Noise, n=23,444 clips). MV clips may include multiple vocalizations or truncated calls. All clips were manually verified by two researchers with expertise in manatee acoustics. Recordings were collected using stationary hydrophones deployed in natural habitats, with variable signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) resulting from changes in distance between the vocalizing manatees and the recorders. Background noise across sites is relatively low, with minimal anthropogenic noise; caution is advised when applying models to noisier environments. No dolphin species are believed to be present at the recording sites, and models trained on this dataset should be used cautiously in dolphin-inhabited regions to avoid false positives. If you use this dataset, please reach out to the listed contacts, we are interested in learning how it supports your work.
Data from: Songbird species that display more-complex vocal learning are better problem-solvers and have larger brains
<p>Complex vocal learning, a critical component of human spoken language, has been assumed to be associated with more-advanced cognitive abilities. Tests of this hypothesis between individuals within a species have been inconclusive and have not been done across species. In this work, we measured an array of cognitive skills - namely problem-solving, associative and reversal learning, and self-control - across 214 individuals of 23 bird species, including 19 wild-caught songbird species and two vocal nonlearning species. We found that the greater the vocal learning abilities of a species, the better their problem-solving skills and the relatively larger their brains. These conclusions held when controlling for non-cognitive variables and phylogeny. Our results support a hypothesis of shared genetic and cognitive mechanisms between vocal learning, problem-solving, and bigger brains in songbirds.</p>
African elephant rumbles differ between populations and sympatric social groups: possible consequences of vocal learning?
<p>Vocal production learning, the ability to modify vocalizations in response to sounds made by others, was a critical prerequisite for the evolution of human speech but is rare among mammals. Elephants have exhibited this ability in captivity, yet its function in wild elephants remains unknown. Female African savannah elephants (<em>Loxodonta</em> <em>africana</em>) live in large societies with nested tiers of association in which vocal signatures of group identity could facilitate recognition of distant social affiliates. Vocal production learning allows the formation of such group signatures in many species and can also cause vocal differentiation between populations. However, the existence of vocal signatures of social group or population in elephants was unexplored. We recorded multiple social groups of wild elephants in two Kenyan populations (Samburu and Amboseli) and used random forest models to determine if calls could be assigned to individual callers, family groups, bond groups (collections of family groups), or populations based on acoustic structure. Calls were assigned by a random forest model to individual callers and populations with better-than-chance accuracy, demonstrating population-level divergence in vocalization structure. While random forest models failed to accurately assign calls to family or bond group, calls from the same family or bond group were significantly more similar (higher proximity scores) than calls from different groups, suggesting the existence of group signatures as well. We discuss possible drivers of this differentiation and argue that vocal learning is the most likely explanation for population- and group-level variation in elephants. The existence of group signatures suggests recognition of large numbers of individuals as a possible adaptive function for vocal production learning in elephants.</p>
Data from: Learning the sound inventory of a complex vocal skill via an intrinsic reward
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Data from: Songbird species that display more-complex vocal learning are better problem-solvers and have larger brains
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Vocalization data and scripts to model reindeer rut activity using on-animal acoustic recorders and machine learning
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Introductory gestures before songbird vocal displays are shaped by learning and biological predispositions
<p>Numerous animal displays begin with introductory gestures. For example, lizards start their head-bobbing displays with introductory push-ups and many songbirds begin their vocal displays by repeating introductory notes (INs) before producing their learned song. Among songbirds, the acoustic structure and the number of INs produced before song vary considerably between individuals in a species. While similar variation in songs between individuals is a result of learning, whether variation in INs are also due to learning remains poorly understood. Here, using natural and experimental tutoring with male zebra finches, we show that mean IN number and IN acoustic structure are learned from a tutor. Interestingly, IN properties and how well INs were learned, was not correlated with the accuracy of song imitation and only weakly correlated with some features of songs that followed. Finally, birds artificially tutored with songs lacking INs still repeated vocalizations that resembled INs, before their songs, suggesting biological predispositions in IN production. These results demonstrate that INs, just like song elements, are shaped both by learning and biological predispositions. More generally, our results suggest mechanisms for generating variation in introductory gestures between individuals while still maintaining the species-specific structure of complex displays like birdsong.</p>
Maternal behavior influences vocal practice and learning processes in the greater sac-winged bat
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Data from: Acoustic adaptation to city noise through vocal learning by a songbird
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Data from: Song evolution, speciation, and vocal learning in passerine birds
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Introductory gestures before songbird vocal displays are shaped by learning and biological predispositions
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Data from: Social group signatures in hummingbird displays provide evidence of co-occurrence of vocal and visual learning
Vocal learning, in which animals modify their vocalizations based on social experience, has evolved in several lineages of mammals and birds, including humans. Despite much attention, the question of how this key cognitive trait has evolved remains unanswered. The motor theory for the origin of vocal learning posits that neural centers specialized for vocal learning arose from adjacent areas in the brain devoted to general motor learning. One prediction of this hypothesis is that visual displays that rely on complex motor patterns may also be learned in taxa with vocal learning. While learning of both spoken and gestural languages is well-documented in humans, the occurrence of learned visual displays has rarely been examined in non-human animals. We tested for geographic variation consistent with learning of visual displays in long-billed hermits (Phaethornis longirostris), a lek-mating hummingbird that, like humans, has both learned vocalizations and elaborate visual displays. We found lek-level signatures in both vocal parameters and visual display features, including element proportions, sequence syntax, and fine-scale parameters of elements. This variation was not associated with genetic differentiation between leks. In the absence of genetic differences, geographic variation in vocal signals at small scales is most parsimoniously attributed to learning, suggesting a significant role of social learning in visual display ontogeny. The co-occurrence of learning in vocal and visual displays would be consistent with a parallel evolution of these two signal modalities in this species.
Data and code for: Discrimination between the facial gestures of vocalizing and non-vocalizing lemurs and small apes using deep learning.
<p>Data and code for: Discrimination between the facial gestures of vocalizing and non-vocalizing lemurs and small apes using deep learning</p>
Evidence for maintenance of key components of vocal learning in aging budgerigars despite diminished affiliative social interaction
<p>In some species, the ability to acquire new vocalizations persists into adulthood and may be an important mediator of social interactions. While it is generally assumed that vocal learning persists undiminished throughout the lifespan of these open-ended learners, the stability of this trait remains largely unexplored. We hypothesize that vocal learning exhibits senescence, as is typical of complex cognitive traits, and that this decline may relate to age-dependent changes in sociality. The budgerigar (<em>Melopsittacus undulatus</em>), an open-ended learner which develops new contact call types that are shared with social associates upon joining new flocks, provides a robust assay for measuring the effects of aging on vocal learning ability. We formed captive flocks of 4 previously unfamiliar adult males of the same age class, either "young adults" (6 mo.-1 yr.) or "older adults" (≥ 3 yr.), and concurrently tracked changes in contact call structure and social interactions over time. Older adults exhibited decreased vocal diversity, which may be related to the sparser and weaker affiliative bonds observed in older adults. Older adults, however, displayed equivalent levels of vocal plasticity and vocal convergence compared to young adults, suggesting vocal learning ability is largely maintained into later adulthood in an open-ended learner.</p>
Data from: Learning to cope: vocal adjustment to urban noise is correlated with prior experience in black-capped chickadees
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Evidence for maintenance of key components of vocal learning in aging budgerigars despite diminished affiliative social interaction
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Data from: Social group signatures in hummingbird displays provide evidence of co-occurrence of vocal and visual learning
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Prenatal auditory learning in avian vocal learners and non-learners
<p>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 development of the neural substrates for any sort of vocal learning to begin in songbirds was thought to be reached well after hatching. New research shows that embryonic gene activation and the outcome of vocal learning can be modulated by sound exposure in ovo. We tested whether avian embryos across lineages differ in their auditory response strength and sound learning in ovo, which we studied in vocal learning (Maluridae, Geospizidae) and vocal non-learning (Phasianidae, Spheniscidae) taxa. While measuring heart rate in ovo, we exposed embryos to (1) conspecific or heterospecific vocalisations, to determine their response strength, and (2) conspecific vocalisations repeatedly, to quantify cardiac habituation, a form of non-associative learning. Response strength towards conspecific vocalisations was greater in two species with vocal production learning compared to two species without. Response patterns consistent with non-associative auditory learning occurred in all species. Our results demonstrate a capacity to perceive and learn to recognise sounds in ovo, as evidenced by habituation, even in species that were previously assumed to have little, if any, vocal production learning.</p>
Babbling in a vocal learning bat resembles human infant babbling
<p>Babbling is a production milestone in infant speech development. Evidence for babbling in non-human mammals is scarce, preventing cross-species comparisons. Here, we investigate the conspicuous babbling behavior of <em>Saccopteryx bilineata</em>, a bat capable of vocal production learning. We analyzed babbling of 20 bat pups in the field during their 3-month ontogeny and compared its features to those that characterize babbling in human infants. Our findings demonstrate that babbling in bat pups is characterized by the same eight features as babbling in human infants, including the conspicuous features reduplication and rhythmicity. These unprecedented and striking parallels in vocal ontogeny between two mammalian species offer exciting future possibilities to compare the cognitive and neuromolecular mechanisms and adaptive functions of babbling in bats and humans.</p>
Babbling in a vocal learning bat resembles human infant babbling
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.