ter Haar, S.M., Fernandez, A.A., Gratier, M. et al. (6 more authors) (2021) Cross-species parallels in babbling : animals and algorithms. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376 (1836). 20200239. ISSN 0962-8436
Abstract
A key feature of vocal ontogeny in a variety of taxa with extensive vocal repertoires is a developmental pattern in which vocal exploration is followed by a period of category formation that results in a mature species-specific repertoire. Vocal development preceding the adult repertoire is often called ‘babbling’, a term used to describe aspects of vocal development in species of vocal-learning birds, some marine mammals, some New World monkeys, some bats and humans. The paper summarizes the results of research on babbling in examples from five taxa and proposes a unifying definition facilitating their comparison. There are notable similarities across these species in the developmental pattern of vocalizations, suggesting that vocal production learning might require babbling. However, the current state of the literature is insufficient to confirm this suggestion. We suggest directions for future research to elucidate this issue, emphasizing the importance of (i) expanding the descriptive data and seeking species with complex mature repertoires where babbling may not occur or may occur only to a minimal extent; (ii) (quasi-)experimental research to tease apart possible mechanisms of acquisition and/or self-organizing development; and (iii) computational modelling as a methodology to test hypotheses about the origins and functions of babbling.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | babbling; comparative vocal ontogeny; evolution of vocal communication; vocal exploration; vocal learning; vocal play |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 14 Sep 2021 08:08 |
Last Modified: | 14 Sep 2021 08:08 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rstb.2020.0239 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:178140 |