An electronic syrinx to explore mechanisms of birdsong production

EZEQUIEL M. ARNEODO; JACOBO D. SITT; FRANZ GOLLER; GABRIEL B. MINDLIN

Sao Jose dos campos, SP, Brazil.

Conferencia; Dynamics Days South America 2010; 2010

Songbirds are the best-suited animal model to study general mechanisms underlying complex, learned motor behavior, as it is birdsong. The avian vocal organ of the Zebra Finch is capable of generating a large variety of acoustic signals, which range from simple whistles to highly complex sounds.Our current knowledge of neuromuscular control is insufficient in explaining how muscle activation patterns give rise to the diversity of sounds produced by the Zebra Finch.A relationship has been found between the spectral content of a vocalization and its fundamental frequency, which can be related to the different mechanisms by which labial oscillations are started when the air sac pressure reaches a threshold value.We propose a mathematical model of the zebra finch syrinx has been proposed, in which the onset of labial oscillations is tuned by parameters accounting for the bird´s motor patterns. We then build an electronic birdsong synthesizer by implementing the model in a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). This device is capable of reading physiological recordings, integrating the mathematical equations representing the avian vocal organ´s behavior, and synthesizing song in real time.