e-book

The Physics of Birdsong

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Few sounds in nature show the beauty, diversity and structure that we find
in birdsong. The song produced by a bird that is frequently found in the
place where we grew up has an immense evocative power, hardly comparable
with any other natural phenomenon. These reasons would have been more
than enough to attract our interest to the point of working on an aspect
of this phenomenon. However, in recent years birdsong has also turned into
an extremely interesting problem for the scientific community. The reason is
that, out of the approximately 10 000 species of birds known to exist, some
4000 share with humans (and just a few other examples in the animal kingdom)
a remarkable feature: the acquisition of vocalization requires a certain
degree of exposure to a tutor. These vocal learners are the oscine songbirds,
together with the parrots and hummingbirds. For this reason, hundreds of
studies have focused on localizing, within the birds’ brains, the regions involved
in the learning and production of the song. The hope is to understand
through this example the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of a general
complex behavior through learning. The shared, unspoken dream is to
learn something about the way in which we humans learn speech. Studies
of the roles of hormones, genetics and experience in the configuration of the
neural architecture needed to execute the complex task of singing have kept
hundreds of scientists busy in recent years.

Between the complex neural architecture generating the basic instructions
and the beautiful phenomenon that we enjoy frequently at dawn stands
a delicate apparatus that the bird must control with incredible precision.
This book deals with the physical mechanisms at play in the production of
birdsong. It is organized around an analysis of the song “up” toward the
brain. We begin with a brief introduction to the physics of sound, discussing
how to describe it and how to generate it. With these elements, we discuss
the avian vocal organ of birds, and how to control it in order to produce
different sounds. Different species have anatomically different vocal organs;
we concentrate on the case of the songbirds for the reason mentioned above.
We briefly discuss some aspects of the neural architecture needed to control
the vocal organ, but our focus is on the physics involved in the generation
of the song. We discuss some complex acoustic features present in the song
that are generated when simple neural instructions drive the highly complex
vocal organ. This is a beautiful example of how the study of the brain and
physics complement each other: the study of neural instructions alone does
not prepare us for the complexity that arises when these instructions interact
with the avian vocal organ.

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

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Penerbit

New York : Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg., 2005

Deskripsi Fisik

SPIN 11326915. 57/3141/jvg - 5 4 3 2 1 0. x, 157 hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783540253990

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Enginee

Subjek

FISIKA KEDOKTERAN

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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