127 | Erich Jarvis on Language, Birds, and People

127 | Erich Jarvis on Language, Birds, and People

Many characteristics go into making human beings special — brain size, opposable thumbs, etc. Surely one of the most important is language, and in particular the ability to learn new sounds and use them for communication. Many other species communicate through sound, but only a very few — humans, elephants, bats, cetaceans, and a handful of bird species — learn new sounds in order to do so. Erich Jarvis has been shedding enormous light on the process of vocal learning, by studying birds and comparing them to humans. He argues that there is a particular mental circuit in the brains of parrots (for example) responsible for vocal learning, and that it corresponds to similar circuits in the human brain. This has implications for the development of intelligence and other important human characteristics.

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Erich Jarvis received his Ph.D. in Animal Behavior and Molecular Neurobehavior from Rockefeller University. He is currently a professor in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at Rockefeller and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Among his many awards are the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation, an American Philosophical Society Award, a Packard Foundation fellowship, an NIH Director's Pioneer award, Northwestern University's Distinguished Role Model in Science award, and the Summit Award from the American Society for Association Executives.


Jaksot(417)

243 | Joseph Silk on Science on the Moon

243 | Joseph Silk on Science on the Moon

The Earth's atmosphere is good for some things, like providing something to breathe. But it does get in the way of astronomers, who have been successful at launching orbiting telescopes into space. Bu...

17 Heinä 20231h 11min

242 | David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information

242 | David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information

Complexity scientists have been able to make an impressive amount of progress despite the fact that there is not universal agreement about what "complexity" actually is. We know it when we see it, per...

10 Heinä 20231h 33min

AMA | July 2023

AMA | July 2023

Welcome to the July 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

3 Heinä 20233h 4min

241 | Tim Maudlin on Locality, Hidden Variables, and Quantum Foundations

241 | Tim Maudlin on Locality, Hidden Variables, and Quantum Foundations

Last year's Nobel Prize for experimental tests of Bell's Theorem was the first Nobel in the foundations of quantum mechanics since Max Born in 1954. Quantum foundations is enjoying a bit of a resurgen...

26 Kesä 20231h 33min

240 | Andrew Pontzen on Simulations and the Universe

240 | Andrew Pontzen on Simulations and the Universe

It's somewhat amazing that cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, can make any progress at all. But it has, especially so in recent decades. Partly that's because nature has been kind to us ...

19 Kesä 20231h 26min

239 | Brian Lowery on the Social Self

239 | Brian Lowery on the Social Self

There is an image, especially in Western cultures, of the rugged, authentic, self-made individual choosing how to navigate the intricacies of the social world. But there is no mystical soul within us,...

12 Kesä 20231h 10min

AMA | June 2023

AMA | June 2023

Welcome to the June 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

5 Kesä 20232h 58min

238 | Scott Shapiro on the Technology and Philosophy of Hacking

238 | Scott Shapiro on the Technology and Philosophy of Hacking

Modern computers are somewhat more secure against being hacked - either by an inanimate virus or a human interloper - than they used to be. But as our lives are increasingly intertwined with computers...

29 Touko 20231h 27min

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