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Vocal Imitation, A Specialized Brain Function That Facilitates Cultural Transmission in Songbirds

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Acoustic Communication in Animals

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Abstract

We humans are one of the rare animals that imitate others. Imitation enables us to transmit language, music, and other skills and knowledge across generations, contributing to the growth of complex cultures and civilizations. Among mammals, only a handful of species have been reported to imitate others, whereas vocal imitation is oddly common in some avian species including songbirds. Similar to human speech, birdsong is a sequence of complex vocalizations transmitted across generations through imitative learning. Recent advances in neuroscience have begun to elucidate specialized neural circuits underlying the vocal imitation in songbirds. This chapter focuses on songbirds and some other social animals with vocal imitation and discusses how studies on these animals can be useful to understand not only our imitation ability, but also our sociality and complex cultures.

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  1. Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Masashi Tanaka

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Correspondence to Masashi Tanaka .

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  1. Department of Psychology, Aichi University, Toyohashi, Japan

    Yoshimasa Seki

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Tanaka, M. (2023). Vocal Imitation, A Specialized Brain Function That Facilitates Cultural Transmission in Songbirds. In: Seki, Y. (eds) Acoustic Communication in Animals. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0831-8_5

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