The role of social interaction in bird song learning

Bird song learning has become a powerful model system for studying learning because of its parallels with human speech learning, recent advances in understanding of its neurobiological basis, and the strong tradition of studying song learning in both the laboratory and the field. Most of the findings and concepts in the field derive from the tape-tutor experimental paradigm, in which the young bird is tutored by tape-recorded song delivered by a loudspeaker in an isolation chamber. This paradigm provides rigorous experimental control of auditory parameters, but strips song learning of any social context, and has slowed the realization that social factors might be critical to the process. In recent years, field research and lab studies using live birds as tutors have revealed that social factors play a preeminent role in song learning. In this article, we propose a new experimental paradigm-the virtual-tutor design, which permits precise manipulation of singing interactions between simulated tutors that the young bird "overhears," as well as direct singing interactions between the young bird and the simulated tutors. We suggest that this approach may permit researchers to analyze social factors in bird song learning, particularly those relating to auditory interactions, that have been difficult to analyze heretofore.