The convergence of Birdsong prosody and human language

 Prosody is the study of the tune and rhythm of speech and how these features contribute to meaning

Science is starting to acknowledge the amazing parallels of bird song learning with human language learning! here

 studies in both species show correlations between behavioral learning of song or speech and neural activity. These results contribute to the songbird model for human vocal learning.

The first discovery that I cited was Erik Jarvis pointing out the close connection between the auditory and motor cortex for both birds and humans. The sound of emotions

 Right-hemispheric lateralization only for affective prosody.

Now studies have shown that birds, just as humans, develop a stronger left brain dominance in the timing imitation of songs, whereas right brain dominance is for the frequency learning.

So just as with humans, the more a bird becomes left brain dominant in the learning then their better their timing imitation just as with language acquisition in humans. right brain melody emotion processing

  impact of musical structure manipulation on the neural processing of emotional valence during mental state inferences. We used a novel sound-based theory-of-mind paradigm in which participants categorized stimuli of different sensory dissonance level in terms of positive/negative valence. Whilst consistent with previous studies which propose facilitated encoding of consonances, our results demonstrated that distinct levels of consonance/dissonance elicited differential influences on the right angular gyrus, an area implicated in mental state attribution and attention reorienting processes.

And now we find the emotion-motion-music connection is common to both birds and humans: 

Investigation of musicality in birdsong

Here we propose a framework for investigating how birdsong, like human music, employs the above “musical” features to affect the emotions of avian listeners.

I had actually emailed the lead author several years ago - can't remember the details about about this topic I'm sure!

So of course the "mainstream" scientists are for the most part "dismissing" this bird song human song language connection! Saying sure there are parallels but human language is "different."

Oh yeah?

Prosody in birdsong is prosody in human language!

Of course I made this claim to Michael Corballis around 10 years ago - because people don't realize that real human music is tied into holographic learning just as with birds.

Comparative birdsong research should include a prosodic perspective.

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Birdsong structure can be compared to the prosodic hierarchy in human language.

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Birdsong structure may have parallels with the biological codes in human speech.

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Prosodic cues may facilitate vocal learning in songbirds human infants.

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A prosodic framework to study birdsong is provided.

So this is a very exciting discovery that helps to corroborate my previous claim. We just need to realize that natural resonance harmonics of real nonwestern human music is an infinite resonance energy.

 the vocal production of some bird species and others animals can be considered a natural precursor of language.

 Exactly!

I mean what is getting completely disregarding in this search for the origin of human language is that the central focus of the original human culture is SINGING! So a new study that Noam Chomsky cites is on the San Bushmen "clicks" being the key to their "externalization" of language in contrast to an earlier "internationalization" of language as meaning - without any reference to sound. Sound is linear while meaning is a hierarchical structure. Oh yeah? Apparently someone doesn't understand real sound harmonics as infinite noncommutative resonance! Pitch recognition key to human evolution.

  It is proposed in the article that in the course of hominine evolution, the ability of pitch centre recognition became an adaptive innovation which enabled a more effective social consolidation. It is also suggested that the origin of this ability has its roots in the ‘Baldwin effect’ which led to the emergence of a predisposition to join three originally separate abilities – the implicit recognition of the frequency of pitch occurrence, working memory and the emotional assessment of predicted stimuli – into a new mental tool.

 My best friend was a pet parakeet that was just out of its nest. He loved to sing to our piano playing - he sat on the music birds and eat the music pages while singing (just the tops of the pages). Also I could call his name and he would fly out of his cage and up through the stairs and down the hall into my room. He was a close family friend until his tragic accident that I won't go into. But at least he lead a free life - he even tried to sneak off to work with my dad, sitting on his shoulder - into the car! My dad got the bird back in the house luckily without the bird flying off. haha.

O.K.  So there is a direct challenge to the Chomsky model.

 This review brings together accounts of the principles of structure building in music and animal song. It relates them to corresponding models in formal language theory, the extended Chomsky hierarchy (CH), and their probabilistic counterparts. We further discuss common misunderstandings and shortcomings concerning the CH and suggest ways to move beyond. We discuss language, music and animal song in the context of their function and motivation and further integrate problems and issues that are less commonly addressed in the context of language, including continuous event spaces, features of sound and timbre, representation of temporality and interactions of multiple parallel feature streams.

Animal Pitch Perception: melodies and harmonies pdf

Convergence for molecular basis of pitch perception

 However, lack of an interdisciplinary statistical approach to rhythmicity of vocalizations across species hinders comparative and comparable research.

 right

 recent studies have indicated that subcortical brain structures, including those related to the processing of emotions, are also important during the processing of syntax. In order to check whether emotional reactions play a role in the processing of pitch syntax or are only the result of the general mechanism of prediction, the comparison of skin conductance levels reacting to three types of melodies were recorded.

 Bingo - pitch tied to language syntax as emotion processing!

  the processing of pitch syntax mainly generates increased activation of the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system. These results suggest that the cortico–subcortical loops (especially the anterior cingulate – limbic loop) may play an important role in the processing of musical syntax.

 Exactly!

 Although it may seem that timbre in music is not perceptively organized in a hierarchical way, the specific characteristics of spectral (e.g., spectral centroid) and temporal (e.g., attack time) cues allow for the discrimination between different categories of timbres, e.g., between the timbre of the flute and the piano. These categories, similar to pitch, occur in music with different probabilities.

This is what I talked to Michael Corballis about - the frequency is recursive as nonlinear feedback.

 the activity of the pitch class prediction circuit results in syntactical organization of perceived sounds in music which allows for the recognition of a recursive relationship (Woolhouse et al., 2016).

 So then Michael Corballis responds:

parrots’ affiliative long-term relationships, similar to that of humans, may help explain both groups’ ability to produce and use a wide variety of sounds.

 For me - we have to remember the holographic spirit animal communication! This is real - and so communicating with arm gestures and songs - it is just a spectrum of frequency.

Musicians are selectively better in recognizing angry prosody in unintelligible speech.

fascinating

 Differences in processing of emotional speech prosody between the two groups were only observed when sadness was expressed. Musicians showed increased activation in the middle frontal gyrus, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex and the retrosplenial cortex. Our results suggest an increased sensitivity of emotional processing in musicians with respect to sadness expressed in speech, possibly reflecting empathic processes. again fascinating

The Evolution of Rhythm Cognition: Timing in Music and Speech

I just had a holographic communication with a squirrel outside. I had been sending out qi energy in trance and then I made eye contact with the squirrel under the bird feeder. The squirrel looked at me and realized I was looking at it and so then it ran over by the grass seed I had put down. I said oh the squirrel is eating the grass seed and it was by the deck and I was looking at it. So the squirrel then ran right up to the sliding deck glass door and so was a foot from me, separated by the glass. The squirrel stood up on its hind legs looking in at me and me at the squirrel. I was reminded of how that squirrel had been injured and so we had thrown out bird seed onto the deck for the squirrel. So it remembered us and now it had fully recovered and it was being friendly, hoping we would feed him again - by looking nice and cute. haha. But that was the love qi holographic spirit energy of making eye contact with the squirrel.

Similarly like I said - when it got real cold one winter - I was outside taking a leak and suddenly the flock of chickadees flew right to me - all sitting on a small tree right next to me. I was on the other side of the house but they desperately wanted bird seed - and so even though they appear to ignore me and fly away when I feed them, in fact they know who feeds them and how to ask me for food.

So then I was just sweeping the leaves off the driveway hill and the grouse showed up - it was 5 feet from me. So I was talking and hanging with the grouse and then suddenly a hunting dog shows up in the back of a pick up truck! The driver said, "hey how you doing?" The driver and his wife did not even notice the grouse and their black Lab was well-trained as it pretended not to notice the grouse. I didn't say - hey there's a grouse here since that could easily escalate. I just answered their question and after they drove off the grouse then flew off. haha. Hilarious! Oh just fine, just hanging out with my friend the grouse here - how you doing? Nope - could not say that!