Talking Birds May Also Dance
Neuroscientist Eric Jarvis's work is reported to show similar gene activity in speech and movement areas.
Andrew Huberman · Movement Practice to Strengthen Your Mind-Body Connection | Ido PortalWord of an unusual bird finding comes secondhand, in a conversation relaying work by Eric Jarvis, a neuroscientist who studies language and was set to join a dance company before turning to science. The reported claim is that birds that learn to talk also dance.
In the retelling of Jarvis's work, the bird species that learn to mimic speech overlap with the ones that can dance. The reason given is genetic: the same genes active in speech areas are strongly turned on in very similar patterns in movement areas.
The comment was offered briefly, as a tangent in a wider conversation. The speaker takes the overlap to mean that movement is the basic form of language.
Questions people ask
Which birds can actually talk?
Three groups are vocal learners: parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds. They can learn new sounds from others, rather than being born knowing all their calls, which is what lets a pet parrot copy words.
What does bird dancing look like?
They bob, sway, step side to side, and head-bang in time to music. The best studied example is Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo who adjusted his dancing to match changes in tempo, which researchers take as evidence of true beat perception.
What genes are involved?
No single talk-and-dance gene was named. The point is about shared patterns of activity, where genes involved in speech circuits are also strongly turned on in movement circuits.