How Perception Guides Production in Birdsong Learning

The passeriformes or songbirds make up more than half of all bird species and are divided into two groups: the os cines which learn their songs and sub-oscines which do not. Oscines raised in isolation sing degraded species typical songs similar to wild song. Deafened oscines sing completely degraded songs (Konishi, 1965), while deafened sub-oscines develop normal songs (Kroodsma and Konishi, 1991) indicating that auditory feedback is crucial in oscine song learning. Innate structures in the bird brain regulate song learning.