![]() in nightingales, Luscinia megarhynchos, Hultsch et al. In line with this, improved learning of paired auditory–visual stimuli has been demonstrated in several bird species and contexts, for example in the context of filial imprinting (van Kampen and Bolhuis 1991, 1993) or song learning (e.g. Multimodal signals are often easier detected and remembered by receivers than unimodal signals (reviewed in Rowe 1999) and might thus be beneficial to learning. Bird song production is accompanied by visual components, such as beak, head, throat and body movements. For example, bird song, like much animal communication, is multimodal, offering simultaneous information from several modalities (Partan and Marler 1999 Higham and Hebets 2013 Halfwerk et al. ![]() However, tape and live tutors differ in more aspects than sociality. 1988 Catchpole and Slater 1995 Carouso-Peck et al. see Baptista and Petrinovich 1986 Slater et al. Many researchers have argued that this is because social interaction with a tutor is important for song learning (e.g. Not all songbird species, however, learn as well from a tape tutor as from a live conspecific (reviewed in Baptista and Gaunt 1997 Soma 2011). This high level of experimental and stimulus control has greatly contributed to understanding vocal learning processes (Catchpole and Slater 1995 Derégnaucourt 2011). These methods allow researchers control over the quantity, quality and timing of song exposure. Instead of learning from a bird that is physically present, young birds are tutored by playing back pre-recorded conspecific song via loudspeakers, either under operant control of the juvenile bird or passively (Derégnaucourt 2011). In the study of bird song learning, experimental tape-tutoring has been crucial. ![]() Given the well-established experimental tutoring paradigms, bird song offers a system in which the effect of visual cues on the vocal learning process can be studied experimentally (Doupe and Kuhl 1999 Brainard and Doupe 2002 Goldstein et al. 2015, birdsong: Beecher and Burt 2004 Derégnaucourt 2011 Slater et al. One of the open research questions in the study of both speech and bird song development is whether, and to what extent, exposure to the visual cues accompanying the production of vocalizations, such as lip movements in speech and beak movements in bird song, plays a role in vocal development (speech: Kuhl and Meltzoff 1982 Lewkowicz and Hansen-Tift 2012 Teinonen et al. Whether the lack of three-dimensionality of a video tutor and/or the lack of meaningful social interaction make them less suitable for facilitating song learning than audio–visual exposure to a live tutor remains to be tested.īird song is one of the best-studied animal examples of vocally learned signalling (Catchpole and Slater 1995) and it is often used as a model system for human speech acquisition, because of the many similarities between human speech and bird song (Doupe and Kuhl 1999 Bolhuis et al. Thus, although multimodality increased stimulus engagement and biologically relevant video content was more salient than colour and movement equivalent videos, the higher engagement with the realistic audio–visual stimuli did not lead to enhanced vocal learning. ![]() However, higher engagement with the realistic audio–visual stimuli was not predictive of better song learning. ![]() Juveniles exposed to song playbacks combined with video presentation of a singing bird approached the stimulus more often and spent more time close to it than juveniles exposed to audio playback only or audio playback combined with pixelated and time-reversed videos. We tested this hypothesis by pairing appropriate, colour-realistic, high frame-rate videos of a singing adult male zebra finch tutor with song playbacks and presenting these stimuli to juvenile zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata). Real-world tutor–tutee relations are normally not uni- but multimodal and observations suggest that visual cues related to sound production might enhance vocal learning. Bird song and human speech are learned early in life and for both cases engagement with live social tutors generally leads to better learning outcomes than passive audio-only exposure. ![]()
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