title: Is Birdsong More Like Speech or Music?
abstract: Music and speech share many acoustic cues but not all are equally important. For example, harmonic pitch is essential for music but not for speech. When birds communicate is their song more like speech or music? A new study contrasting pitch and spectral patterns shows that birds perceive their song more like humans perceive speech.
authors.affiliation: Caruso Department of Otolaryngology, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: rshannon@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Robert V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Shannon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013016:Sound; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D046749:Starlings / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: harmonic pitch; music; spectral envelope; speech; temporal envelope