Thread by @cedricboeckx

Very happy to share a new paper with @ptsgmartins, just out in @PLOSBiology: “Vocal Learning: Beyond the continuum” [thread]
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar…

The paper’s core message is that we must avoid too narrow a definition of the vocal learning phenotype if we are to shed light on its evolutionary trajectory and (neuro)biological underpinnings

We recognize that there has been a tremendous amount of progress in this area already — indeed, it’s arguably one of the most successful research areas touching on key aspects of language.

The formulation of a vocal learning continuum by Arriaga, @erichjarvis and @cipetkov was an important step forward, but

while we share the spirit of the vocal learning continuum, we think that the original implementation has limitations

We argue in favor of a much broader comparative basis, beyond canonical species (drawing on work by @lameira_adriano, A. Ghazanfar and many others)

As we articulated our argument, we got inspired by works like:

“Why neuroscience needs behavior” by Krakauer, Ghazanfar, Gomez-Marin, MacIver, @davidpoeppel
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S…

The great overview of vocal learning by @EllaLatt and @Sonja_Vernes sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

And the ‘modular’ perspective advocated by @morganneuro and colleagues: cell.com/neuron/fulltex…