New paper on female guidance of birdsong learning

zebra finch

The latest paper from our lab is out in Current Biology.  In the field of birdsong learning, most researchers focus on male singers rather than females, who in many species don’t sing. Our work shows that females play a crucial role in guiding song learning with rapid nonvocal gestures that are used by young males to refine their songs.  This work was inspired by, and informs, our research on speech and language learning in human infants.

For more information, see the reports in Science and the Cornell Chronicle.