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Bird Brains Explain How Humans Learn to Talk
eaglebtc writes "A team of neuroscientists at MIT have made tremendous progress in understanding how birds learn to sing: a part of the brain called the basal ganglia is primarily responsible for controlling the learning of movement and the production of speech. This circuitry is also present in humans, and it is the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults. It is hoped that this research can provide further insights into Parkinson's Disease, an inherited genetic condition that causes rapid breakdown of motor control and speech production. The full research study is available as a downloadable PDF."
Does this explain the propensity of birds in trees near parking lots to mimic the random yuppie's car alarm?
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... does bird dope explain how humans... um, never mind.
I have a bird brain, but I'm too chicken to admit it.
Be relentless!
Their basal ganglia are starting to depolarize!
...it is the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults.
Proficient speech? Have you heard the way people talk? Sometimes I'm surprised they can dress themselves in the morning.
Bird brain people talk all the time
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
for smart-making
You can't handle the truth.
This circuitry is also present in humans, and it is the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults.
and here folks, we can see that this circuitry can also be reactivated in "adults", when the baby babbling comes back in grown-ups under certain conditions, such as posting on Slashdot.
However, under these circumstances, it tends to become a mass-babbling, where several adults mumble the same things over and over, such as "forsty piss", "gnaa", "soviet russia," or "yoda doll".
An interesting subject for pedopsychiatrists to be sure...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Now if they learned how to make people shut up, that would be worth something!!!
This circuitry is also present in humans, and it is the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults.
Does it also explain why that said adults immediately regress back to random babbling the minute they're confronted with a keyboard and a net connection?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults
bababe baboo baeeeee bteeeink ya ma gegetting a hang of it!!!
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
When a baby babbles randomly, he's learning. When I do it, I'm drunk. Why is there one standard for the baby, another for me?
And here me thinking that brains couldn't talk, you learn something every day!
And I bet 50 quatloons they glow different colours.
Didn't they already find out that birds could talk?. This language stuff is already for the snakes...err, I mean birds.
Best death? What, die from a naked lady avalanche?
I think you're listening to the wrong end of the bird.
...when reached for comment, said that this research didn't ammount to squawk.
To summarize the parent: Words mean things. ps. Good luck on that philosophy degree. Looks like you're most of the way there.