Ongoing Research

Much of the current and recent work in the lab is organized around understanding auditory memories in a model organism: the zebra finch.  Taeniopygia guttata is a traditional animal model for probing vocal learning, and many laboratories have studied the song system, a specialized set of avian forebrain areas that are involved in vocal production and learning.  We are interested in zebra finches, however, as much for their vocal learning capability as for their rich repertoire of communication calls and complex social behaviors, such as territorial defense and long-term pair bonding.  We're currently mining the richness of the zebra finch vocal repertoire in a variety of ways.

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Bioacoustic analyses

Spectral envelope, formants, pitch saliency, etc.  Analyzing natural sounds statistically to determine individual signature (IS).

Behavioral analyses

Zebra finches have impressive discrimination, requiring high memory load.  We know the memory load must be high because of our acoustic analysis, which shows that individual signature is not distinguishable across call types.

Neurophysiology

Ongoing electrophysiological work in secondary auditory areas, including NCM.

Computational models for call type

Hierarchical clustering, supervised clustering, non linear analysis of acoustic feature space.