Ikebuchi M, Okanoya K
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Chiba University, Japan.
Neuroreport. 2000 Nov 27;11(17):3915-9. doi: 10.1097/00001756-200011270-00061.
Males of territorial songbird species have to remember a large number of conspecific songs to defend their territories, while non-territorial songbirds do not need to. A study of a territorial species suggested seemingly unlimited auditory memory size. We measured auditory memory in Bengalese finches, a non-territorial songbird species, to examine whether the auditory memory size for conspecific songs depends on the ecological requirements for song use. Five birds were trained by operant techniques to classify song stimuli into two arbitrary categories. The learning curve reached an asymptote within approximately 100 sessions in all five birds and only eight songs were concurrently remembered on average. Results suggest that ecological requirements for song use are correlated with the auditory song memory capacity.
具有领地意识的鸣禽雄性必须记住大量同种歌曲以保卫其领地，而非领地性鸣禽则无需如此。一项对领地性物种的研究表明，其听觉记忆容量似乎没有限制。我们测量了非领地性鸣禽孟加拉雀的听觉记忆，以检验同种歌曲的听觉记忆容量是否取决于歌曲使用的生态需求。通过操作性技术训练了五只鸟，使其将歌曲刺激分为两个任意类别。在所有五只鸟中，学习曲线在大约100次训练内达到渐近线，平均同时只能记住八首歌曲。结果表明，歌曲使用的生态需求与听觉歌曲记忆容量相关。
