2020 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 94-102
Songbirds, passerine, have species-specific and individually unique songs and sing for courtship behavior, territorial defense, and individual identification. Like human infants acquire language-specific vocalization by listening to parents’ speech, juveniles of songbirds develop species-specific songs by matching their immature vocalizations to songs memorized in early development gradually with vocal motor learning. Expected to shed light on infants’ vocal learning, neural mechanisms of song learning have been investigated intensively, but little is known how neural circuit balances competing criteria, individual uniqueness and species-specificity. A songbird, zebra finches, are social breeder. Their juveniles listen to multiple conspecific songs and develop individually unique own songs. I review development of their individually unique and species-universal songs and neural activities in auditory area supporting the song acquisition in early development with discussion of open questions to be answered in this field.
