Rouse Andrew A, Patel Aniruddh D, Wainapel Samantha, Kao Mimi H
Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, U.S.A.
Program in Brain, Mind and Consciousness, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Anim Behav. 2023 Sep;203:193-206. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.05.001. Epub 2023 Jul 12.
Humans readily recognize familiar rhythmic patterns, such as isochrony (equal timing between events) across a wide range of rates. This reflects a facility with perceiving the relative timing of events, not just absolute interval durations. Several lines of evidence suggest this ability is supported by precise temporal predictions arising from forebrain auditory-motor interactions. We have shown previously that male zebra finches, , which possess specialized auditory-motor networks and communicate with rhythmically patterned sequences, share our ability to flexibly recognize isochrony across rates. To test the hypothesis that flexible rhythm pattern perception is linked to vocal learning, we ask whether female zebra finches, which do not learn to sing, can also recognize global temporal patterns. We find that females can flexibly recognize isochrony across a wide range of rates but perform slightly worse than males on average. These findings are consistent with recent work showing that while females have reduced forebrain song regions, the overall network connectivity of vocal premotor regions is similar to males and may support predictions of upcoming events. Comparative studies of male and female songbirds thus offer an opportunity to study how individual differences in auditory-motor connectivity influence perception of relative timing, a hallmark of human music perception.
人类能够轻易识别熟悉的节奏模式，比如在很宽的速率范围内的等时性（事件之间的等时距）。这反映了一种感知事件相对时间的能力，而不仅仅是绝对的间隔时长。几条证据线索表明，这种能力由前脑听觉 - 运动相互作用产生的精确时间预测所支持。我们之前已经表明，雄性斑胸草雀拥有专门的听觉 - 运动网络，并通过有节奏模式的序列进行交流，它们和我们一样有能力在不同速率下灵活识别等时性。为了检验灵活的节奏模式感知与发声学习相关的假设，我们探究不会学习唱歌的雌性斑胸草雀是否也能识别整体的时间模式。我们发现雌性能够在很宽的速率范围内灵活识别等时性，但平均表现略逊于雄性。这些发现与最近的研究结果一致，即虽然雌性前脑的鸣唱区域有所减少，但发声前运动区域的整体网络连接性与雄性相似，可能支持对即将发生事件的预测。因此，对雄性和雌性鸣禽的比较研究提供了一个机会，来研究听觉 - 运动连接性的个体差异如何影响相对时间感知，这是人类音乐感知的一个标志。
