Songbirdbrains can help us understand how humans learn to talk. They need tutoring to be able to sing:
A zebra finch needs tutoring before it can vocalize or sing. If what appears true for zebra finches is true for humans, then infants deprived of appropriate auditory experience (due to hearing loss or isolation) may fail to develop normal lateralization, which, in turn, could lead to defects in speech processing or production.
Exposure to speech may be necessary for the basic processes of brain development. If their bird-tutor were a vacuum cleaner, would we be hearing very different tweets?
Chirps are instructive. In 2008, MIT neuroscientists reported that by studying the chirps of tiny songbirds, they were able to identify how two distinct brain circuits contribute to this type of trial-and-error learning in different stages of life.
