Song perception in the European starling: hemispheric specialisation and individual variations

摘要: Hemispheric specialisation for speech in humans has been well documented. The lateralisation song production observed songbirds is reminiscent of this hemispheric dominance. In order to investigate whether perception also lateralised, we made multiunit recordings the neuronal activity field L starlings during presentation species-specific and artificial non-specific sounds. We a systematic stronger activation one hemisphere than other playback sounds, with inter-subject variability predominant perception. Such an asymmetry was not Thus, our results suggest that, at least individual level, two hemispheres starlings’ brain perceive process conspecific signals differently.