Some bird species can combine two sound signals in communication. Kyoto University reports.
The human brain can mentally combine two heard words into a word with a fixed meaning. The authors cite the English phrase “come talk”, which means “let’s talk” as an example. If these two words are spoken by different people, the meaning of the message will change completely: one will call to go, the other to speak. Similar “joined” words in the Russian language are “how are you”, “come here”, “goodbye”, “sorry”, etc. Has. Such phrases are often abbreviated and pronounced as one word. This trait is believed to underlie human language and perception, but a new study has shown that it’s not exclusive to humans.
Toshitaka Suzuki and colleagues afflicted experiments with parus minoror eastern tit. Birds emit two signals in a row when they encounter danger – the alarm and recruitment necessary to alert all other individuals. The author suggested that if this “sentence” were split between two birds, its meaning would be lost.
During the experiment, it turned out that the breasts actually read these two signals only if they are from a person. If they are emitted separately by two breasts at the same time, the listening bird will not react.
These results are important for understanding the minds of animals, and this will enable us to understand how the human brain acquired its characteristics during evolution.
Formerly in the Perm Territory discovered An ancient pollen-covered insect fossil.