A researcher's guide to the comparative assessment of vocal production learning

Vocal production learning (VPL) is the capacity to learn to produce new vocalizations, which is a rare ability in the animal kingdom and thus far has only been identified in a handful of mammalian taxa and three groups of birds. Over the last few decades, approaches to the demonstration of VPL have...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences Vol. 376; no. 1836; p. 20200237
Main Authors:	Lattenkamp, Ella Z, Hörpel, Stephen G, Mengede, Janine, Firzlaff, Uwe
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England The Royal Society 25-10-2021
Subjects:	Animals Birds Humans Learning Mammals Opinion Piece Speech Vocalization, Animal vocal production learning cross-species comparison comparative VPL assessment vocal learning quality
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Vocal production learning (VPL) is the capacity to learn to produce new vocalizations, which is a rare ability in the animal kingdom and thus far has only been identified in a handful of mammalian taxa and three groups of birds. Over the last few decades, approaches to the demonstration of VPL have varied among taxa, sound production systems and functions. These discrepancies strongly impede direct comparisons between studies. In the light of the growing number of experimental studies reporting VPL, the need for comparability is becoming more and more pressing. The comparative evaluation of VPL across studies would be facilitated by unified and generalized reporting standards, which would allow a better positioning of species on any proposed VPL continuum. In this paper, we specifically highlight five factors influencing the comparability of VPL assessments: (i) comparison to an acoustic baseline, (ii) comprehensive reporting of acoustic parameters, (iii) extended reporting of training conditions and durations, (iv) investigating VPL function via behavioural, perception-based experiments and (v) validation of findings on a neuronal level. These guidelines emphasize the importance of comparability between studies in order to unify the field of vocal learning. This article is part of the theme issue 'Vocal learning in animals and humans'.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 One contribution of 21 to a theme issue ‘Vocal learning in animals and humans’.
ISSN:	0962-8436 1471-2970 1471-2970
DOI:	10.1098/rstb.2020.0237