Speech perception under adverse conditions: Insights from behavioral, computational, and neuroscience research

Adult speech perception reflects the long-term regularities of the native language, but it is also flexible such that it accommodates and adapts to adverse listening conditions and short-term deviations from native-language norms. The purpose of this article is to examine how the broader neuroscience literature can inform and advance research efforts in understanding the neural basis of flexibility and adaptive plasticity in speech perception. Specifically, we highlight the potential role of learning algorithms that rely on prediction error signals and discuss specific neural structures that are likely to contribute to such learning. To this end, we review behavioral studies, computational accounts, and neuroimaging findings related to adaptive plasticity in speech perception. Already, a few studies have alluded to a potential role of these mechanisms in adaptive plasticity in speech perception. Furthermore, we consider research topics in neuroscience that offer insight into how perception can be adaptively tuned to short-term deviations while balancing the need to maintain stability in the perception of learned long-term regularities. Consideration of the application and limitations of these algorithms in characterizing flexible speech perception under adverse conditions promises to inform theoretical models of speech. © 2014 Guediche, Blumstein, Fiez and Holt

Exploring or Avoiding Novel Food Resources? The Novelty Conflict in an Invasive Bird

For an animal invading a novel region, the ability to develop new behaviors should facilitate the use of novel food resources and hence increase its survival in the new environment. However, the need to explore new resources may entail costs such as exposing the animal to unfamiliar predators. These two opposing forces result in an exploration-avoidance conflict, which can be expected to interfere with the acquisition of new resources. However, its consequences should be less dramatic in highly urbanized environments where new food opportunities are common and predation risk is low. We tested this hypothesis experimentally by presenting three foraging tasks to introduced common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) from environments with low and high urbanization levels from Australia. Individuals from the highly urbanized environments, where mynas are both more opportunistic when foraging and less fearful to predators, resolved a technical task faster than those from less urbanized environments. These differences did not reflect innovative ‘personalities’ and were not confounded by sex, morphology or motivational state. Rather, the principal factors underlying differences in mynas' problem-solving ability were neophobic-neophilic responses, which varied across habitats. Thus, mynas seem to modulate their problem-solving ability according to the benefits and costs of innovating in their particular habitat, which may help us understand the great success of the species in highly urbanized environments

Rapid Change in Articulatory Lip Movement Induced by Preceding Auditory Feedback during Production of Bilabial Plosives

BACKGROUND: There has been plentiful evidence of kinesthetically induced rapid compensation for unanticipated perturbation in speech articulatory movements. However, the role of auditory information in stabilizing articulation has been little studied except for the control of voice fundamental frequency, voice amplitude and vowel formant frequencies. Although the influence of auditory information on the articulatory control process is evident in unintended speech errors caused by delayed auditory feedback, the direct and immediate effect of auditory alteration on the movements of articulators has not been clarified. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This work examined whether temporal changes in the auditory feedback of bilabial plosives immediately affects the subsequent lip movement. We conducted experiments with an auditory feedback alteration system that enabled us to replace or block speech sounds in real time. Participants were asked to produce the syllable /pa/ repeatedly at a constant rate. During the repetition, normal auditory feedback was interrupted, and one of three pre-recorded syllables /pa/, /Φa/, or /pi/, spoken by the same participant, was presented once at a different timing from the anticipated production onset, while no feedback was presented for subsequent repetitions. Comparisons of the labial distance trajectories under altered and normal feedback conditions indicated that the movement quickened during the short period immediately after the alteration onset, when /pa/ was presented 50 ms before the expected timing. Such change was not significant under other feedback conditions we tested. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The earlier articulation rapidly induced by the progressive auditory input suggests that a compensatory mechanism helps to maintain a constant speech rate by detecting errors between the internally predicted and actually provided auditory information associated with self movement. The timing- and context-dependent effects of feedback alteration suggest that the sensory error detection works in a temporally asymmetric window where acoustic features of the syllable to be produced may be coded

How a slow-ovipositing parasitoid can succed as a biological control agent of the invasive mealybug Phenacoccus peruvianus: implications for future classical and conservation biological control programs

[EN] Phenaccocus peruvianus Granara de Willink (Hemiptera: pseudococcidae) is an invasive mealybug that has become a pest of ornamental plants in Europe and has recently been detected in California, USA. In this work, we studied the tritrophic interaction among this mealybug, its main parasitoid Acerophagus n. sp. near coccois (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) and tending ants to disclose the success of this parasitoid controlling P. peruvianus. Acerophagus n. sp. near coccois accepted mealybugs for parasitism regardless of their size but did not hostfeed. We recorded three active defenses of P. peruvianus. Host handling time-consuming process that required more than 30 min. Tending ants, Lasius grandis (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), reduced the time spent by parasitoids in a patch and disrupted oviposition attempts. 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Sexually Selected Infanticide in a Polygynous Bat

Background: Adult individuals of many species kill unrelated conspecific infants for several adaptive reasons ranging from predation or resource competition to the prevention of misdirected parental care. Moreover, infanticide can increase the reproductive success of the aggressor by killing the offspring of competitors and thereafter mating with the victimized females. This sexually selected infanticide predominantly occurs in polygynous species, with convincing evidence for primates, carnivores, equids, and rodents. Evidence for bats was predicted but lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we report the first case, to our knowledge, of sexually selected infanticide in a bat, the polygynous white-throated round-eared bat, Lophostoma silvicolum. Behavioral studies in a free-living population revealed that an adult male repeatedly attacked and injured the pups of two females belonging to his harem, ultimately causing the death of one pup. The infanticidal male subsequently mated with the mother of the victimized pup and this copulation occurred earlier than any other in his harem. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings indicate that sexually selected infanticide is more widespread than previously thought, adding bats as a new taxon performing this strategy. Future work on other bats, especially polygynous species in the tropics, has great potential to investigate the selective pressures influencing the evolution of sexually selecte

Oxidative Stress Mediates Physiological Costs of Begging in Magpie (Pica pica) Nestlings

[Background] Theoretical models predict that a cost is necessary to guarantee honesty in begging displays given by offspring to solicit food from their parents. There is evidence for begging costs in the form of a reduced growth rate and immunocompetence. Moreover, begging implies vigorous physical activity and attentiveness, which should increase metabolism and thus the releasing of pro-oxidant substances. Consequently, we predict that soliciting offspring incur a cost in terms of oxidative stress, and growth rate and immune response (processes that generate pro-oxidants substances) are reduced in order to maintain oxidative balance. [Methodology/Principal Findings] We test whether magpie (Pica pica) nestlings incur a cost in terms of oxidative stress when experimentally forced to beg intensively, and whether oxidative balance is maintained by reducing growth rate and immune response. Our results show that begging provokes oxidative stress, and that nestlings begging for longer bouts reduce growth and immune response, thereby maintaining their oxidative status. [Conclusions/Significance] These findings help explaining the physiological link between begging and its associated growth and immunocompetence costs, which seems to be mediated by oxidative stress. Our study is a unique example of the complex relationships between the intensity of a communicative display (begging), oxidative stress, and life-history traits directly linked to viability.GM-R was supported by the Spanish Government (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, “Juan de la Cierva” program), and TR was supported by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC; Proyectos Intramurales Especiales)

Primate responses to changing environments in the anthropocene

Most primates have slow life-histories and long generation times. Because environmental change is occurring at an unprecedented rate, gene-based adaptations are unlikely to evolve fast enough to offer successful responses to these changes. The paper reviews the most common types of habitat/landscape alterations, the extent of human-primate interactions, and the impact of climate change. It demonstrates how understanding behavioural flexibility as a response to environmental change will be crucial to optimize conservation efforts by constructing informed management plans. Comparisons across species, space, and time can be used to draw generalizations about primate responses to environmental change while considering their behavioural flexibility

Birds in the playground: Evaluating the effectiveness of an urban environmental education project in enhancing school children's awareness, knowledge and attitudes towards local wildlife.

Children nowadays, particularly in urban areas, are more disconnected from nature than ever before, leading to a large-scale "extinction of experience" with the natural world. Yet there are many potential benefits from children interacting with nature first-hand, including via outdoor learning opportunities. Urban environmental education programmes typically aim to increase awareness and knowledge of local biodiversity and to promote positive attitudes and behaviour towards the environment. However, limited research has been conducted evaluating to what extent these interventions achieve their goals. Here, we explore and assess the influence of a six-week bird-feeding and monitoring project conducted within school grounds ("Bird Buddies") on individual awareness, knowledge and attitudes towards birds by primary school children. This initiative was conducted across eight (sub-)urban primary schools within Brighton and Hove (UK), with 220 participating children (aged 7 to 10). Via pre- and post-project questionnaires, we found evidence for enhanced awareness of local biodiversity, alongside significant gains in both bird identification knowledge and attitudes, which were greatest for children with little prior exposure to nature. Many children expressed a keenness to continue improving the environmental value of their school grounds and to apply elements of the project at home. Student project evaluation scores were consistently positive. Mirroring this, participating teachers endorsed the project as a positive learning experience for their students. One year after the project, several schools were continuing to feed and watch birds. Collectively, the findings from this study highlight the multiple benefits that can be derived from engagement with a relatively short outdoor environmental activity. We therefore believe that such interventions, if repeated locally/longer term, could enhance children's experience with nature in urban settings with combined positive environmental impact