Komo MaiResearch
Publications TeachingResearch Interests: Analysis of animal communication sounds.
Very few animals learn their vocalizations. Songbirds, such as the zebra finch, learn their songs from a tutor and an open question is how much of the song is acquired vs. inherited. In collaboration with W. Bialek, I have worked out a new approach to the analysis of complex natural sounds. We analyzed the statistics of adult zebra finch song, and developed new methods for the song analysis. The advantage of our methods is that they are model independent and based purely on information theoretic principles.
S. Still, A. K. Schenk, B. D. Wright, A. J. Doupe and W. Bialek. Information theoretic approaches to the analysis of complex natural sounds. The Gordon Conference ``Sensory Coding and the Natural Environment -- Probabilistic models of perception'', Mount Holyoke College, MA, USA, 2002.
Student Projects (499, 699, Masters thesis, PhD thesis)
1. Information content in zebra finch song about social parameters (499, 699 or thesis)
This project will tackle
questions regarding the behaviorally relevant information that is
encoded in the bird song by asking about variations in the song
recorded under different behavioral paradigms.
2. Analysing plastic song (699 or thesis)
This project will investigate how song is learned by
analyzing ``plastic'' song produced during bird development.
3. Whale Song analysis (499, 699 or thesis)
This project will investigate questions
about the statistics of the communication sounds of whales. The long
term goal is to identify statistically relevant ``units''
in these vocalizations and to test them for behavioral significance.
in these vocalizations and to test them for behavioral significance.