Forschung

Cross-species Phonetics

Description

Humans often say sentences that they have never said before, but they are not the only species with unstereotyped vocalizations. Here we are studying whether other animals with unstereotyped vocalizations, like the budgerigar, follow similar patterns to human speech.

Cooperation Partner

  • Chris Sturdy, University of Alberta, Canada
Budgerigar being recorded with a shotgun microphone. Image from: Gutscher, L., Pucher, M., Lozo, C., Hoeschele, M., & Mann, D. C. (2019). Statistical parametric synthesis of budgerigar songs, (September), 127–131.
Based on phonetic descriptions of natural budgerigar vocalizations (top), we were able to generate artificial budgerigar vocalizations (middle and bottom) that we are now using to test budgerigar perception of grammar. Image from: Gutscher, L., Pucher, M., Lozo, C., Hoeschele, M., & Mann, D. C. (2019). Statistical parametric synthesis of budgerigar songs, (September), 127–131.
Phonetics
Machine Learning

Team