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Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

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Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#11

Post by bluechair »

I remember hearing about an interesting paper; it argued that Zebra finch songs were as complex as recursively enumerable languages on the Chomsky hierarchy. I wanted to see if I could find it but came across another paper arguing that their embedded context sensitivity can be explained by simpler rules.

    https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0908113106
Just the same, these little fellows are some of the cutest on our planet.

Left this comment as another computer science connection.

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#12

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

ileonichwiesz wrote: post #3

Very interesting topic, but a strange choice of source. I'd recommend these instead: Coller foundation press release: https://www.jeremycollerfoundation.org/news-and-insights/pre... The actual publication in Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads8482

Here's a non-paywalled version of the research.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.14.623689v1....

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#14

Post by [deleted] »

why_at wrote: post #9
adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe there’s any evidence behind plant’s feeling or thinking. Other than that you’re right.

Yeah I think there's a lot of science news about how plants are capable of more than the average person thinks, but people tend to conflate that with some kind of conscious experience.

[deleted]

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#15

Post by SapporoChris »

why_at wrote: post #9
adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe there’s any evidence behind plant’s feeling or thinking. Other than that you’re right.

Yeah I think there's a lot of science news about how plants are capable of more than the average person thinks, but people tend to conflate that with some kind of conscious experience.

What the average person thinks is a very low barrier but I do not think plants have crossed that yet.

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#16

Post by ghurtado »

A lot of interesting information here, but this one paragraph blew my mind:

> Although the birds occasionally made mistakes, they more often confused calls with similar meanings rather than similar sounds. “Their responses indicated they have a mental imagery of the meaning of their vocalisations,” Elie said. “In other words, that they understand the meaning of their call types.”

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#18

Post by pks016 »

I work in the field. The main takeaway is zebra finches (maybe other songbirds) can discriminate vocalizations based on function, even if they sound similar.

Generally, birds can tell apart categories of sounds e.g. vocalizations from different individual birds, male vs female, call vs song, conspecific vs heterospecific etc. The question is if birds can do it for specific function e.g. agonistic calls vs non-agonistic calls. Simple question but way harder to test because of associated contextual info. with vocalizations.

The paper is culmination of last decade of work (includes many of the past works) but this is the new result.

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#19

Post by forlorn_mammoth »

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #8
t-writescode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad we’re doing this research. It makes me wonder how much time and potential we’ve wasted over the years actively assuming non-human animals were just rote automatons. It seems like a meaningful amount of science has been spent on systematically dismantling pre-existing prejudice over the last hundreds of years (and thousands in some cases and cultures). All humans are human. Babies can feel pain. Plants feel.…

I don’t believe there’s any evidence behind plant’s feeling or thinking. Other than that you’re right.

fortunately, there is a lot of evidence behind plant's feeling and thinking; enough so that if you were to expose yourself to it, and if you were willing to update your beliefs based on strong scientific evidence, I believe you'd change your view.

Re: Breaking the Bird Barrier: Scientist Decodes Zebra Finch Language

#20

Post by mcswell »

t-writescode wrote: post #7
technothrasher wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title doesn't match the paper though. People had already decoded the bird calls. What the paper was giving evidence to was that the birds themselves are cognitively decoding the calls.

I’m glad we’re doing this research. It makes me wonder how much time and potential we’ve wasted over the years actively assuming non-human animals were just rote automatons. It seems like a meaningful amount of science has been spent on systematically dismantling pre-existing prejudice over the last hundreds of years (and thousands in some cases and cultures). All humans are human. Babies can feel pain. Plants feel.…

11 distinct calls is something a rote automaton could easily cope with. So I don't think this study proves much of anything about birds' cognitive abilities.
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