And not only that , we are discovering that mutations in these genes that cause speech deficits in humans , like in Fox P two . if you put those same mutations or similar type of deficits in these vocal learning birds , you get similar deficits . So convergence of the behavior is associated with similar genetic disorders of the behavior .
So , um which would be kind of the equivalent in the linguistic community of universal grammar . There is something genetically influencing our vocal communication on top of what we learn culturally . And so there's this balance between the genetic control of speech or a song in these birds and the learned uh cultural control .
There is something genetically influencing our vocal communication on top of what we learn culturally . And so there's this balance between the genetic control of speech or a song in these birds and the learned uh cultural control . And so , so yes , if you were to take , um you know , um I mean , in this case , we , we actually tried this at Rockefeller later on take a zebra finch and raise it with a canary .
We call it a can inch , right ? Uh And vice versa for the canary because there's something different about their vocal musculature or the gene or the circuitry in the brain . And with a zebra finch , even with a closely related species , if you would take a zebra finch uh young animal and in one cage next to it , place its own species , adult male , right ?
Uh If a nonhuman primate or um you know , or let's say a chicken becomes deaf , uh their vocalizations don't deteriorate very little , at least . Uh while this happens in the vocal learning birds . So there were all these behavioral parallels that came along with a package .
