Experimental Results

(lfBF)

You have chosen to have your experimental finch cross-fostered by a Bengalese finch tutor (lfBF.) Remember that your control finch was tutored by a Long-Tailed Finch (lfLF.) Let's take a look at your results to see what happened. You will be looking at three different kinds of data. You will compare spectrograms of the songs of your two birds with spectrograms of other birds. You will also listen to the songs of your two birds and compare them to songs of different species. Finally, you will look at neuron activation of your two birds as they listen to different songs. All of this data is taken from real experiments done by Sarah Woolley and Jordan Moore.

Spectrograms

Birds From Your Experiment

Experimental Bird

Long-Tailed Finch Raised by Bengalese Finch (lfBF)

Control Bird

Long-Tailed Finch Raised by Long-Tailed Finch (lfLF)

Reference Birds (for Comparison)

Zebra Finch (ZF)

Long Tailed Finch (LF)

Bengalese Finch (BF)

Compare the spectrograms of your control and experimental birds to the spectrograms from other birds. Which are they most similar to? What can you learn from this?

Songs

Birds From Your Experiment

Experimental Bird

Long-Tailed Finch Raised by Bengalese Finch (lfBF)

lfbf_pupil.mp3

Control Bird

Long-Tailed Finch Raised by Long-Tailed Finch (lfLF)

lflf_pupil.mp3

Reference Birds (For Comparison)

Zebra Finch (ZF)

ZF_standard.mp3

Long-Tailed Finch (LF)

LF_standard.mp3

Bengalese Finch (BF)

BF_standard.mp3

Click above to listen to the audio files of the birdsongs from your control and experimental birds. Compare and contrast them to the reference birds. What can you learn from the songs?

Neuron Activation

Electrodes were placed in the listening areas of the brains of each of your birds. Here is what happened in the deep and secondary parts of the listening areas when they heard the song of their own species (Long-Tailed Finch) and another species (Bengalese Finch.) RED indicates HIGH levels of neuron activation and YELLOW indicates NORMAL levels of neuron activation. Remember, these are the areas that are highly active when the bird is focused on the song and paying close attention.

Experimental Bird (lfBF)

When your experimental bird (lfBF) listened to a Bengalese Finch song, the secondary and deep parts of the listening area of the brain showed HIGH activation.

When your experimental bird (lfBF) listened to a Long-Tailed Finch song, the neurons in the secondary and deep parts of the listening area of the brain showed NORMAL activation.

Control Bird (lfLF)

When your control bird (lfLF) listened to a Bengalese Finch song, the neurons in the secondary and deep parts of the listening area of the brain showed NORMAL activation.

When your control bird (lfLF) listened to a Long-Tailed Finch song, the secondary and deep parts of the listening area of the brain showed HIGH activation.

Moore, Jordan M., and Sarah MN Woolley. "Emergent tuning for learned vocalizations in auditory cortex." Nature neuroscience 22.9 (2019): 1469-1476.

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