1,721,243 research outputs found
Rhythm and synchrony in animal movement and communication
Full text linkAnimal communication and motoric behavior develop over time. Often, this temporal dimension has communicative relevance and is organized according to structural patterns. In other words, time is a crucial dimension for rhythm and synchrony in animal movement and communication. Rhythm is defined as temporal structure at a second-millisecond time scale (Kotz et al. 2018). Synchrony is defined as precise co-occurrence of 2 behaviors in time (Ravignani 2017). Rhythm, synchrony, and other forms of temporal interaction are taking center stage in animal behavior and communication. Several critical questions include, among others: what species show which rhythmic predispositions? How does a species’ sensitivity for, or proclivity towards, rhythm arise? What are the species-specific functions of rhythm and synchrony, and are there functional trends across species? How did similar or different rhythmic behaviors evolved in different species? This Special Column aims at collecting and contrasting research from different species, perceptual modalities, and empirical methods. The focus is on timing, rhythm and synchrony in the second-millisecond range. Three main approaches are commonly adopted to study animal rhythms, with a focus on: 1) spontaneous individual rhythm production, 2) group rhythms, or 3) synchronization experiments. I concisely introduce them below (see also Kotz et al. 2018; Ravignani et al. 2018)
Chronometry for the chorusing herd: Hamilton's legacy on context-dependent acoustic signalling—a comment on Herbers (2013)
Full text linkBiology Letters’ special feature on Hamilton’s legacy pays due tribute to a brilliant mind. Herbers [1] and the other contributors paint a compelling picture of how Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness anticipated much contemporary evolutionary thinking, although sometimes not acknowledged until much later.
A more recent, although equally cited work by Hamilton is the ‘Geometry for the selfish herd’ [2], an elegant mathematical description of why individuals aggregate in space. In the spirit of this special feature [1], I illustrate why Hamilton’s herd model should be recognized as an early mathematical formal- ism applicable to unrelated, although crucial, biological phenomena. Notably, Hamilton’s model of gregarious behaviour can be directly applied to the prob- lem of context-dependent acoustic signalling as follows, with the potential to describe how interdependent individual calls combine into choruses
Isochrony, vocal learning and the acquisition of rhythm and melody
Full text linkA cross-species perspective can extend and provide testable predictions for Savage et al.’s framework. Rhythm and melody, I argue, could bootstrap each other in the evolution of musicality. Isochrony may function as a temporal grid to support rehearsing and learning modulated, pitched vocalizations. Once this melodic plasticity is acquired, focus can shift back to refining rhythm processing and beat induction
Timing of antisynchronous calling: A case study in a harbor seal pup (Phoca vitulina)
Full text linkAlternative mathematical models predict differences in how animals adjust the timing of their calls. Differences can be measured as the effect of the timing of a conspecific call on the rate and period of calling of a focal animal, and the lag between the two. Here, I test these alternative hypotheses by tapping into harbor seals’ (Phoca vitulina) mechanisms for spontaneous timing. Both socioecology and vocal behavior of harbor seals make them an interesting model species to study call rhythm and timing. Here, a wild-born seal pup was tested in controlled laboratory conditions. Based on previous recordings of her vocalizations and those of others, I designed playback experiments adapted to that specific animal. The call onsets of the animal were measured as a function of tempo, rhythmic regularity, and spectral properties of the playbacks. The pup adapted the timing of her calls in response to conspecifics’ calls. Rather than responding at a fixed time delay, the pup adjusted her calls’ onset to occur at a fraction of the playback tempo, showing a relative-phase antisynchrony. Experimental results were confirmed via computational modeling. This case study lends preliminary support to a classic mathematical model of animal behavior—Hamilton’s selfish herd—in the acoustic domain
Darwin, sexual selection, and the origins of music
Full text linkHumans devote ample time to produce and perceive music. How and why this behavioral propensity originated in our species is unknown. For centuries, speculation dominated the study of the evolutionary origins of musicality. Following Darwin’s early intuitions, recent empirical research is opening a new chapter to tackle this mystery
Comment on “Temporal and spatial variation in harbor seal (Phoca vitulina L.) roar calls from southern Scandinavia” [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141, 1824-1834 (2017)]
Full text linkIn their recent article, Sabinsky and colleagues investigated heterogeneity in harbor seals' vocalizations. The authors found seasonal and geographical variation in acoustic parameters, warning readers that recording conditions might account for some of their results. This paper expands on the temporal aspect of the encountered heterogeneity in harbor seals' vocalizations. Temporal information is the least susceptible to variable recording conditions. Hence geographical and seasonal variability in roar timing constitutes the most robust finding in the target article. In pinnipeds, evidence of timing and rhythm in the millisecond range—as opposed to circadian and seasonal rhythms—has theoretical and interdisciplinary relevance. In fact, the study of rhythm and timing in harbor seals is particularly decisive to support or confute a cross-species hypothesis, causally linking the evolution of vocal production learning and rhythm. The results by Sabinsky and colleagues can shed light on current scientific questions beyond pinniped bioacoustics, and help formulate empirically testable predictions
Language evolution: Sound meets gesture? [Review of the book From signal to symbol: The evolution of language by By R. Planer and K. Sterelny]
Full text linkA molecular biologist, a historical linguist, and a developmental psychologist walk into a bar. This is not a joke and could instead well describe a social evening at a language evolution conference. Over the last 30 years and more, a plethora of disciplines has tried to find out how language originated and developed in our species. Scholarly contributions come from the humanities, social sciences, engineering and natural sciences. In particular, the many disciplines involved, to name just a few, are: philology, archeology, psychology, artificial life, computer science, physics, paleontology, and genetics. I imagine how granting agencies may dread funding proposals in language evolution: how can one assemble an evaluation panel with such diverse backgrounds
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