Parrot Brains Reveal Why Birds are Great at Imitating Human Speech

First Posted: Jun 25, 2015 08:57 AM EDT

Scientists may have discovered why parrots are so good at imitating sounds. They've uncovered key structural differences in the brains of parrots that may explain the birds' ability to imitate human speech.

"This finding opens up a huge avenue of research in parrots, in trying to understand how parrots are processing the information necessary to copy novel sounds and what are the mechanisms that underlie imitation of human speech sounds," said Mukta Chakraborty, one of the researchers, in a news release.

Parrots are one of the few animals that are considered to be "vocal learners." This means that they can imitate sounds. For years, scientists have been trying to figure out why some bird species are better imitators than others.

In this latest study, the researchers examined gene expression patterns. This revealed that parrot brains are structured differently than the brains of songbirds and hummingbirds, which also exhibit vocal learning. In addition to having defined centers in the brain that control vocal learning called "cores," parrots have what are known as "shells," or outer rings. These outer rings are also involved in vocal learning.

The shells are actually bigger in species of parrots that are well-known for their ability to imitate human speech. This, in particular, shows a link between this structure and vocal ability.

"The first thing that surprised me when Mukta and I were looking at the new results is, 'Wow, how did I miss this all these years? How did everybody else miss this all these years?'" said Erich Jarvis, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The surprise to me was more about human psychology and what we look for and how biased we are in what we look for. Once you see it, it's obvious. I have these brain sections from 15 years ago, and now I can see it."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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TagsParrot, Birds, Speech, Vocals, Brain