Highlights•Understanding sound production mechanisms can enhance investigation of
performance.•Performance ranges of temporal and spectral features vary with production …

Speech has long been recognized as 'special'. Here, we suggest that one of the reasons for
speech being special is that our auditory system has evolved to encode it in an efficient …

The dichotomy between vocal learners and non-learners is a fundamental distinction in the
study of animal communication. Male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) are vocal learners …

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 …

The proliferation of birdsong research into the neural mechanisms of vocal learning is
indebted to the remarkable stereotypy of the zebra finch's song motif. Motifs are composed of …

The categorization of animal vocalizations into distinct behaviorally relevant groups for
communication is an essential operation that must be performed by the auditory system. This …

An essential task of the auditory system is to discriminate between different communication
signals, such as vocalizations. In everyday acoustic environments, the auditory system …

The ability to discriminate changes in the fine structure of complex sounds is well developed
in birds. However, the precise limit of this discrimination ability and how it is used in the …

Interaction with the world requires an organism to transform sensory signals into
representations in which behaviorally meaningful properties of the environment are made …

Individual vocal recognition plays an important role in the social lives of many vocally active
species. In group-living songbirds the most common vocalizations during communal …