The Animal We Study Work in our lab focuses on a songbird, the zebra finch. We are interested in zebra finches because like humans, they must learn to vocalize in order to communicate with one another. As with human language, zebra finch song patterns are learned during sensitive periods of early development. Another important aspect of zebra finch vocal behavior is that only males sing. Song is used by males to court females, but they will also sing spontaneously, even when no females are present.
Young males learn to sing by imitating their father's song.
In this way, song patterns are passed from generation to generation. Song learning involves several cognitive processes. Shown below is a timeline of zebra finch vocal development. As adults, they cannot learn a new song. Sensory-motor learning begins with subsong, characterized by the production of highly variable song syllables and syllable sequences.