Vocal Learning in Mammals with Special Emphasis on Pinnipeds
Vocal Learning in Mammals with Special Emphasis on Pinnipeds
This chapter offers remarkable evidence of vocal flexibility in pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses), species whose learning capabilities are surprising indeed, and discusses published experiments and new observations on their vocal usage and production learning capabilities. It shows that some pinnipeds can learn to alter the contexts in which they emit natural vocalizations, as well as modify their call structure along several structural dimensions, to an extent not known to occur in most terrestrial mammals. The chapter suggests that pinnipeds do have some degree of voluntary control over their sound emissions and reveals that the walrus observations exhibit plasticity in sound production in a particularly vocal species with a strong potential for complex communicative interactions during development.
Keywords: vocal flexibility, seals, sea lions, walruses, vocal usage, learning capabilities, natural vocalizations, plasticity, sound production
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