Parrots just like people / day

The parrots seem to be unable to show off the big brain, but the gorgeous birds have somehow learned to entertain people by imitating the sounds we have pronounced. Sometimes even so accurate that we believe it in human language. How do parrots succeed in such complicated vocalization?

Not only the owners of the parrots, but also the scientists have sought the answer to this question. After a recent study, they have moved a little closer to the remembrance of the puzzle, although they are not yet able to explain this phenomenon yet.

Remembers and is able to learn

It turns out that the bird’s brain is not as helpless as people have visited. Even in some areas, it works surprisingly similar to ours, and therefore the parrots have good memory, as well as learning, counting and reasoning.

Magazine Nature A report on a study in which scientists focused on exploring Australia’s wavy parrots. Small birds in neon green and yellow, often sold as pets, live in the wild in social herds and communicate with prolonged vesting. In captivity, they also retain their social habits, imitating the sounds around them. If they are the words spoken, the parrots try to pronounce them. For example, a parrot, named Puks, even entered the Guinness Book of Records with the largest vocabulary of 1728 words at the end of the last century.

Different from others

To understand how these birds mimic people’s pronounced words and create so many different sounds, the authors of the study surgically implanted small probes of four parrots in the brain region associated with the voice of the birds. They then collected information on the activity of each bird’s nerve at moments of vocalization. Scientists compared these data with information derived from people and Australian Zebra’s fork – singing birds commonly used in scientific studies and have a narrower voicem repertoire than parrots.

The authors of the work discovered that the parrot brain, known as the anterior arcopalia (AAC), works more similarly to the parts of the human cortex, which is related to speech function than other birds. Zebra forkings are coded with sophisticated, non -interpretable neural action blocks. Each sound is accompanied by a unique cerebral « barcode ». Zebra bubbles learn and repeat complex songs, but their brain activity indicates that they have limited ability to change their acquired or improvise.

« Looking at the waves of the Zebra Bitch, we cannot draw any conclusions from them, » the portal Popular Science says Michael Longs, a co -author of the University of New York, « We do not see any indication of the actual notes. We can only see the activity, and it is the same every time these birds sing their songs. »

Sounds make up as people

In the case of parrots, everything is different. Their brain acts in a modular way – just like humans. Birds and people seem to encode vocalization using discreet, repeated nerve pathways. Specific lip or tongue muscle movements in the human brain are associated with certain neural patterns. The relationship is clear enough for scientists to use this type of brain signals to interpret speech. Also, the neurons in the parrot brain are shooting according to the tone and type of sound created by the bird.

« It’s like a vocal keyboard. It seems that some brain cells are moving the sounds of consonants and vowels. With all the combinations, you can encode everything you want to say, » the scientist explains, adding that this is the first time that the animal has discovered a method of vocalization.