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(416)

174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy

174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy

Mathematics is often thought of as the pinnacle of crisp precision: the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle isn't "roughly" the sum of the squares of the other two sides, it's exactly that. B...

22 Marras 20211h 21min

AMA | November 2021

AMA | November 2021

Welcome to the November 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of qu...

17 Marras 20213h 54min

173 | Sylvia Earle on the Oceans, the Planet, and People

173 | Sylvia Earle on the Oceans, the Planet, and People

It's a well-worn cliché that oceans cover seventy percent of the surface of Earth, but we tend to give them secondary consideration when thinking about the environment. But climate change is wreaking ...

15 Marras 20211h 11min

172 | David Goyer on Televising the Fall of the Galactic Empire

172 | David Goyer on Televising the Fall of the Galactic Empire

Science and storytelling have a long and tumultuous relationship. Scientists sometimes want stories to be just an advertisement for how awesome science is; storytellers sometimes want to use science f...

8 Marras 20211h 16min

171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology

171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology

As the holidays approach, we are being reminded of the fragility of the global supply chain. But at the same time, the supply chain itself is a truly impressive and fascinating structure, made as it i...

1 Marras 20211h 27min

170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies

170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies

There is so much we don't know about our universe. But our curiosity about the unknown shouldn't blind us to the incredible progress we have made in cosmology over the last century. We know the univer...

25 Loka 20211h 27min

169 | C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency

169 | C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency

Games are everywhere, but why exactly do we play them? It seems counterintuitive, to artificially invent goals and obstacles just so we can struggle to achieve them. (And in some games, like Twister, ...

18 Loka 20211h 24min

AMA | October 2021

AMA | October 2021

Welcome to the October 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of que...

14 Loka 20212h 59min

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