2025-11-04 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校(UCB)
A mating pair of male (left) and female zebra finches. Native to the interior of Australia, zebra finches congregate in very vocal groups of as many as a hundred individuals. They disperse to breed, bonding with one mate for life.Julie Elie/UC Berkeley
<関連情報>
- https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/11/04/finch-chirps-are-more-than-mindless-chatter-they-actually-convey-meaning/
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads8482
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-015-0933-6
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000334721000223X
キンカチョウの鳴き声の種類の意味に関するカテゴリカルおよびセマンティックな知覚 Categorical and semantic perception of the meaning of call types in zebra finches
Julie E. Elie, Aude de Witasse-Thézy, Logan Thomas, Ben Malit, and Frédéric E. Theunissen
Science Published:18 Sep 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ads8482
Editor’s summary
Humans naturally categorize sounds, whether they be from our own languages or those we perceive in other species. We can’t directly ask those species, however, whether our categorization of their sounds matches their own interpretations of the meanings associated with them. Elie et al. conducted auditory discrimination tasks with zebra finches and found that the birds both discriminated and categorized the presumed meanings of their calls. Thus, the birds both understand the categories of their calls and create mental representations of their meaning, similar to what humans do. —Sacha Vignieri
Abstract
Vocal communication in social animals involves the production and perception of various calls that ethologists categorize into call types based on their acoustical structure and behavioral context. Whether these categories indicate distinct meanings for the animals remains unknown. The zebra finch, a gregarious songbird, uses ~11 call types that are known to communicate hunger, danger, or social conflict and to establish social contact and bonding. Using auditory discrimination tasks, we show that the birds both discriminate and categorize all the call types in their vocal repertoire. In addition, systematic errors were more frequent between call types used in similar behavioral contexts than could be expected from their acoustic similarity. Thus, zebra finches organize their calls into categories and create a mental representation of the meaning of these sounds.
飼いならされたキンカチョウの音声レパートリー:コミュニケーション信号の情報伝達音響特性を解読するためのデータ駆動型アプローチ The vocal repertoire of the domesticated zebra finch: a data-driven approach to decipher the information-bearing acoustic features of communication signals
Julie E. Elie & Frédéric E. Theunissen
Animal Cognition Published:18 November 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0933-6
Abstract
Although a universal code for the acoustic features of animal vocal communication calls may not exist, the thorough analysis of the distinctive acoustical features of vocalization categories is important not only to decipher the acoustical code for a specific species but also to understand the evolution of communication signals and the mechanisms used to produce and understand them. Here, we recorded more than 8000 examples of almost all the vocalizations of the domesticated zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata: vocalizations produced to establish contact, to form and maintain pair bonds, to sound an alarm, to communicate distress or to advertise hunger or aggressive intents. We characterized each vocalization type using complete representations that avoided any a priori assumptions on the acoustic code, as well as classical bioacoustics measures that could provide more intuitive interpretations. We then used these acoustical features to rigorously determine the potential information-bearing acoustical features for each vocalization type using both a novel regularized classifier and an unsupervised clustering algorithm. Vocalization categories are discriminated by the shape of their frequency spectrum and by their pitch saliency (noisy to tonal vocalizations) but not particularly by their fundamental frequency. Notably, the spectral shape of zebra finch vocalizations contains peaks or formants that vary systematically across categories and that would be generated by active control of both the vocal organ (source) and the upper vocal tract (filter).
野生のキンカチョウの巣でのつがい同士の音声コミュニケーション:プライベートな音声デュエット? Vocal communication at the nest between mates in wild zebra finches: a private vocal duet?
Julie E. Elie, Mylène M. Mariette, Hédi A. Soula, Simon C. Griffith, Nicolas Mathevon, Clémentine Vignal
Animal Behaviour Available online: 24 July 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.06.003
Bird vocal duets are joint displays where two individuals, generally a mated pair, produce temporally coordinated vocalizations. Duets may contribute to pair bond maintenance, mate guarding or collaborative defence of resources. The degree of coordination between mates and the variety of vocalizations, however, vary considerably. Although only 3–4.3% of bird species have been reported to duet, this may be because studies have generally focused on conspicuous duets, and more private forms of duet might have been overlooked. We investigated private vocal communication between mates in wild zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, a gregarious Australian songbird that forms life-long pair bonds. The partners are inseparable unless nest building, incubating or brooding. Using microphones inside nestboxes, we monitored interactive communication between partners at the nest and its variation during different stages of breeding. After periods of separation, partners performed coordinated mutual vocal displays involving specific soft vocal elements that fulfilled all the criteria used to define duets. In addition, using playback experiments, we obtained preliminary results suggesting that these soft calls could allow mate recognition. Thus, we propose that mutual displays at the nest in zebra finches represent private vocal duets and may function to mediate pair bond maintenance.
