Sun, 27 May 2012
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The way in which birds learn to sing shows striking similarities to the way in which human babies learn language, say researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The bird brain can therefore serve as a model for research into the workings of human memory.Research into birdsong is more than just a quaint scientific hobby. Discovering how a bird’s memory grasps the intricacies of birdsong enables us to increase our store of knowledge about language and the human brain. And such knowledge is vital if we are ever to succeed in combating diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Previous research had already established that young zebra finches use the same parts of their brain to learn birdsong from their parent as human babies do when learning to talk. The bonds between humans and birds are therefore closer than you might think. But now even more similarities have emerged.
Taking a nap
For instance, researcher Johan Bolhuis has happened upon the importance of sleep for the learning capacity of both humans and finches:
"Our latest discovery is that sleep plays a very important part in the finch’s song. This too is comparable to humans. We have known for some time that sleep is important to human learning and it has recently been shown that young children are better at learning language if they have the chance to take a nap in between."
Not much content there.. so depriving finches of sleep reduced their birdsong learning ability?
What other findings were there?
Not much content there.. so depriving finches of sleep reduced their birdsong learning ability?
What other findings were there?
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