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Get off my lawn: Song Sparrows Escalate Territorial Threats

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2013Naturebehavior, brain mechanism, caglar akcay, communication system, cornell university, discovery park, distinctive ways, early warning signal, elizabeth campbell, flipping the bird, hierarchical warning scheme, human language, learn language, learning, male song sparrow, mari tom, melospiza melodia, michael beecher, pattern of signaling, people, seattle, song matching, territorial song sparrows, territory, threatening signals, trespassing rivals, university of washington, wing waving

Territorial song sparrows use increasingly threatening signals to ward off trespassing rivals. First an early warning that matches the intruder’s song, then wing waving – a bird’s version of “flipping the bird” – as the dispute heats up, and finally, if all other signals have failed, attack.

This hierarchical warning scheme, discovered by researchers at the University of Washington, adds nuance to a communication system that has been long-used as a model to study how people use and learn language (more…)

How Beliefs Shape Effort and Learning

If it was easy to learn, it will be easy to remember. Psychological scientists have maintained that nearly everyone uses this simple rule to assess their own learning.

Now a study published in an upcoming issue Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests otherwise: “Individuals with different theories about the nature of intelligence tend to evaluate their learning in different ways,” says David B. Miele of Columbia University, who conducted the study with Bridgid Finn of Washington University in St. Louis and Daniel C. Molden of Northwestern University. (more…)

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Get off my lawn: Song Sparrows Escalate Territorial Threats

How Beliefs Shape Effort and Learning