Bloomfield, Laurie L., Christopher B. Sturdy, Leslie S. Phillmore, and
Ronald G. Weisman. 2003. Open-ended categorization of chick-a-
dee calls by Black-Capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapilla). pp.
290?301.
Abstract:
The authors trained black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) in
an operant discrimination with exemplars of black-capped and
Carolina chick-a-dee calls, with the goal of determining whether the
birds memorized the calls of conspecifics and heterospecifics or
classified the calls by species. Black-capped calls served as both
rewarded (S+) and unrewarded (S-) stimuli (the within-category
discrimination), whereas Carolina chick-a-dee calls served as S-s
(the between-category discrimination) in the black-capped chick-a-
dee call S+ group. The Carolina call S+ group had Carolina calls as
S+s and S-s (within-category) and black-capped calls as S-s
(between-category). Both groups discriminated between call
categories faster than within a call category. In 2 subsequent
experiments, both S+ groups showed transfer to novel calls and
propagation back to between-category calls. The results favor the
hypothesis that the acoustically similar social calls of the 2 species
constitute separate open-ended categories.
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Mag. Lidia Eva Wysocki
Institute of Zoology, University of Vienna
Althanstrasse 14
A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Phone: ++43-1-4277/54515
Fax: ++43-1-4277-9544
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From Wed, 12 Nov 2003 13:55:52 -0800
From: Jill Soha <>
To:
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 13:55:52 -0800
Subject: Bird song paper in Condor (Nov 2003)
Message-Id:
Vol: 105, Issue: 4, November 1, 2003
pp. 672-682
THE COMPLEX SONG DUET OF THE PLAIN WREN
Mann, Nigel I.; Marshall-Ball, Lorraine; Slater, Peter J. B.
We studied the duet of the Caribbean-slope subspecies of the Plain
Wren (Thryothorus modestus zeledoni ) in Costa Rica. It is one of the
most complex duets to have been described. The duet proper consists of
rapid, highly coordinated alternation of "A-phrases" from the female
and "B-phrases" from the male. While the female initiates this section
with her A-phrase, this cyclical part of the duet is almost invariably
preceded by an introductory "I-phrase" from the male, so that it is
the male that initiates the performance. Each male has a repertoire of
I- and B-phrases, and each female has a repertoire of A-phrases. These
are specifically associated with each other to form a repertoire of
duet types. We hypothesize that the pattern of song organization in
this species facilitates more coordinated and precise duetting. The
presence of the three components means that a full duet requires the
cooperation of both members of the pair, strongly suggesting that it
represents a mutually beneficial signal.
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Dr. Jill Soha, Curator
Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics (<a href="http://blb.biosci.ohio-state.edu";
rel="nofollow">http://blb.biosci.ohio-state.edu</a>)
The Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity
1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212 (614) 292-2176
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