[Music]
ever since I was a child whenever I hear
of the sound with a bird in nature on
the answering calls of his mates I used
to feel as if I could visualize the not
song and scale all spread out within my
consciousness somehow as a natural
Symphony other since then I wanted to
know the name of every bird I wanted to
know how they got their beautiful colors
and I wanted to know why do they think
and how do they sing but living in a
country where we appreciate birds for
their meat more than their songs there
was no one to tell me or answer my
questions every word coming with one
said your head as a forest full of
songbirds I want him and hear by
songbirds our ideas thoughts and
emotions I felt as a continuous call
within my thoughts and emotions to get
closer to one understand this wonderful
feathered vocalists time flew by my
interest in bird song was rekindled once
I graduated from UB in 2005 and moved to
America for my PhD being in new to USA
and being other fond of birds I decided
to get couple parakeets home I did so
very quickly they became my wonderful
roommates not only that I taught them
how to eat from my hands I taught them
how to fly to my shoulders and I told
them how to say a few words like Habibi
Hey and okay there are not only great
vocalists they were also great listeners
I could swear they would listen to me
and feel me and I continued wondering
how can they think and feel more so it
was other mind-blowing to me
how can these tiny little creatures
learn to imitate vocal sounds and
sometimes with an attitude
if record sound nowadays via a
microphone we can understand and explain
the underlying physics electronics and
other other concept which enable us
to hear our recorded sounds but with
birds it was like a black box I had no
idea what was going inside their fragile
skulls and what’s the internal brain
circuitry that’s orchestrating this very
interesting behavior there’s an ancient
proverb that says is very hard to find a
black cat in a dark room especially when
there is no cat I find this particularly
accurate description of my scientific
curiosity and the continuous monologue
of questions in my head about many
things around me always wandering around
in dark room bumping into things trying
to figure out where both black cats are
but never finding a satisfying answer or
even the route to do so then I thought I
found this route it was a neuroscience
the study of the brain and behavior and
I quickly realized that neuroscience can
be the flashlight that illuminate the
dark room and help me find those black
cats as you can guess I started studying
the song bird brain you see those birds
author neuroscientist with lots of
advantages to answer many fundamental
questions about our brain and they are
accessible to invasive research
techniques which were obvious Atika
reason is not possible in a human
research imagine for example you’d like
to understand how a computer works and
all that what you can get your hands on
is a screen and mouse any keyboard you
really would be unfortunate right
because you’d like to open the computer
crack it open and look at the wiring
inside but we can do so with the human
brain and the brain is a learning
machine many cognitive and motor skills
that we exhibit such as playing the
piano on learning is poor such as
hitting a tennis ball these skills are
not innately programmed which means they
don’t come to us from the sky or via
genetics rather they are learned through
a process of trial and error and often
of the extensive practice one example of
a skill which you may not have thought
of but which humans are particularly
good at is language or learning how to
speak
young children need to listen to the
vocalizations of their parents and they
quickly learn to reproduce them we hear
the world around us in very similar ways
just as built I’m gonna give you just
couple examples
neither birds can sing normally nor a
human babies can speak normally if they
are not being tutored by their parents
or adults near them once his speech and
birdsong are learned they often remain
remarkably stable throughout life time
for example you know it’s very difficult
to change our accents once we are adults
or to develop fluency in a new language
the same with birds and if songbirds
were deafened when they are babies
learning their songs then their songs
would be highly abnormal likewise with
the humans if a human babies were born
deaf then they don’t acquire spoken
language and if they were born with
normal hearing abilities but they become
deaf throughout their lifetime due to
some injury thunders vocalization will
deteriorate markedly already a billion
people around the world have some kind
of a brain disorder
what are schizophrenia Parkinson’s
depression a vine marathon song and the
disorders associated with vocal
communication and learning are just as a
quite a dramatic themselves these
diseases they not only steal our time to
live they change who we are and the
alter our identity and our emotions so
next time you are outside listening to a
bird singing I hope you remember that
this is a very complex learned behavior
and that we can understand so much about
our own brains and behavior from
studying verse I hope that you get to
appreciate love and study a bird instead
of shooting it I hope we don’t take
everything for granted around us for
example the brain rather reflect on this
majesty
this couple kilograms of flesh which you
can hold your hand but which can
meditate upon the vastness of the
universe it can ask questions about the
meaning of infinity
and even the question is own existence
absolutely the most incredible thing in
the world I hope you realize that the
derogatory term bird brain is very wrong
and can be rather taken as a compliment
after all this journey I’m more
fascinated with birdsong than I ever was
it’s beautiful it’s challenging and it’s
truly a reflection on the masterfulness
of modern nature and finally just
remember what my Angela once said a bear
doesn’t seem because it has an answer it
sings because it has a song thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
ever since I was a child whenever I hear
of the sound with a bird in nature on
the answering calls of his mates I used
to feel as if I could visualize the not
song and scale all spread out within my
consciousness somehow as a natural
Symphony other since then I wanted to
know the name of every bird I wanted to
know how they got their beautiful colors
and I wanted to know why do they think
and how do they sing but living in a
country where we appreciate birds for
their meat more than their songs there
was no one to tell me or answer my
questions every word coming with one
said your head as a forest full of
songbirds I want him and hear by
songbirds our ideas thoughts and
emotions I felt as a continuous call
within my thoughts and emotions to get
closer to one understand this wonderful
feathered vocalists time flew by my
interest in bird song was rekindled once
I graduated from UB in 2005 and moved to
America for my PhD being in new to USA
and being other fond of birds I decided
to get couple parakeets home I did so
very quickly they became my wonderful
roommates not only that I taught them
how to eat from my hands I taught them
how to fly to my shoulders and I told
them how to say a few words like Habibi
Hey and okay there are not only great
vocalists they were also great listeners
I could swear they would listen to me
and feel me and I continued wondering
how can they think and feel more so it
was other mind-blowing to me
how can these tiny little creatures
learn to imitate vocal sounds and
sometimes with an attitude
if record sound nowadays via a
microphone we can understand and explain
the underlying physics electronics and
other other concept which enable us
to hear our recorded sounds but with
birds it was like a black box I had no
idea what was going inside their fragile
skulls and what’s the internal brain
circuitry that’s orchestrating this very
interesting behavior there’s an ancient
proverb that says is very hard to find a
black cat in a dark room especially when
there is no cat I find this particularly
accurate description of my scientific
curiosity and the continuous monologue
of questions in my head about many
things around me always wandering around
in dark room bumping into things trying
to figure out where both black cats are
but never finding a satisfying answer or
even the route to do so then I thought I
found this route it was a neuroscience
the study of the brain and behavior and
I quickly realized that neuroscience can
be the flashlight that illuminate the
dark room and help me find those black
cats as you can guess I started studying
the song bird brain you see those birds
author neuroscientist with lots of
advantages to answer many fundamental
questions about our brain and they are
accessible to invasive research
techniques which were obvious Atika
reason is not possible in a human
research imagine for example you’d like
to understand how a computer works and
all that what you can get your hands on
is a screen and mouse any keyboard you
really would be unfortunate right
because you’d like to open the computer
crack it open and look at the wiring
inside but we can do so with the human
brain and the brain is a learning
machine many cognitive and motor skills
that we exhibit such as playing the
piano on learning is poor such as
hitting a tennis ball these skills are
not innately programmed which means they
don’t come to us from the sky or via
genetics rather they are learned through
a process of trial and error and often
of the extensive practice one example of
a skill which you may not have thought
of but which humans are particularly
good at is language or learning how to
speak
young children need to listen to the
vocalizations of their parents and they
quickly learn to reproduce them we hear
the world around us in very similar ways
just as built I’m gonna give you just
couple examples
neither birds can sing normally nor a
human babies can speak normally if they
are not being tutored by their parents
or adults near them once his speech and
birdsong are learned they often remain
remarkably stable throughout life time
for example you know it’s very difficult
to change our accents once we are adults
or to develop fluency in a new language
the same with birds and if songbirds
were deafened when they are babies
learning their songs then their songs
would be highly abnormal likewise with
the humans if a human babies were born
deaf then they don’t acquire spoken
language and if they were born with
normal hearing abilities but they become
deaf throughout their lifetime due to
some injury thunders vocalization will
deteriorate markedly already a billion
people around the world have some kind
of a brain disorder
what are schizophrenia Parkinson’s
depression a vine marathon song and the
disorders associated with vocal
communication and learning are just as a
quite a dramatic themselves these
diseases they not only steal our time to
live they change who we are and the
alter our identity and our emotions so
next time you are outside listening to a
bird singing I hope you remember that
this is a very complex learned behavior
and that we can understand so much about
our own brains and behavior from
studying verse I hope that you get to
appreciate love and study a bird instead
of shooting it I hope we don’t take
everything for granted around us for
example the brain rather reflect on this
majesty
this couple kilograms of flesh which you
can hold your hand but which can
meditate upon the vastness of the
universe it can ask questions about the
meaning of infinity
and even the question is own existence
absolutely the most incredible thing in
the world I hope you realize that the
derogatory term bird brain is very wrong
and can be rather taken as a compliment
after all this journey I’m more
fascinated with birdsong than I ever was
it’s beautiful it’s challenging and it’s
truly a reflection on the masterfulness
of modern nature and finally just
remember what my Angela once said a bear
doesn’t seem because it has an answer it
sings because it has a song thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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