Author: Anne

Animal Signalling Theory 101: Handicap, Index… or even a signal? The Case of Fluctuating Asymmetry

The differences between handicaps and indices are usually distinguishable in formal mathematical models or in unambiguous real-world cases. Often though, classifying a trait as a handicap, an index, or even a signal at all, can be quite a difficult task.

For the purposes of illustration I will use Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA for short) as an example.  Fluctuating asymmetry is the term used to refer to deviation from symmetry in paired morphological structures (ranging from birds’ tails to human faces) that should be, all being well, bilaterally symmetric. Deviations from the ideal symmetrical phenotype are caused by inherent genetic perturbations and exposure to environmental disturbances occurring in early development.

Is FA a signal?

In their 2005 book Animal Signals, Maynard-Smith and Harper define a signal as:

‘Any act or structure which alters the behaviour of other organisms, which evolved because of that effect, and which is effective because the receiver’s response has also evolved’

They then argue that FA is unlikely to function as a signal because it is difficult to discern whether receivers respond directly to FA and because there appear to be few examples of displays in which signallers actively advertise their symmetry to receivers.

 

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The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

Just a quick post in case folks haven’t heard about this already, I got a copy for Christmas.

‘The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?’ by Padgett Powell – A book composed entirely of interrogative sentences, or rather, questions.

It has been hailed as a pioneering yet risky step in the author’s somewhat turbulent writing career, but has received praise from a puzzled many people who have found an unexpected enjoyment and intrigue in its pages, for example:

‘How this book works is beyond me, but, miraculously, it does’ (Village Voice)

‘It is a wondrous strange… a hydra-headed reflection of life as it experienced, and of thought as it is felt’ (New York Times Book Review)

The book is not the first of its kind – ‘Gold Fools’ by fellow American novelist Gilbert Sorrentino is also completely written in interrogative sentences, and tells a Western adventure story whilst challenging and questioning genre-specific stereotypes and contemporary linguistic convention.

Even so, Powell’s book is still unique because it was written to achieve a different objective. Unlike ‘Gold Fools’ there is no chronological story to this ‘novel’ – Powell calls upon every sentence forming configuration in English to dispense vast stores of accrued knowledge, factual information, tantalising and mysterious hints about himself, his memories, and his life. Some interrogatives are curt and challenging, where as others span the length of paragraphs and pages thanks to some pretty serious sentence embedding. Through an agreeable barrage of dos, ifs, ares and all the WH-words, Powell not only covertly feeds us information about himself, but forces us to think deep into the worlds of ourselves and those around us. He presents the reader with moral dilemmas interspersed with comparably routine queries, encouraging us to consider how we might behave faced with a variety of arbitrary and significant choices, highlighting both humorous and perturbing inconsistencies in every arena of life.

Direction and premeditated structure is not immediately apparent in the novel (something to be examined, maybe?) and this works as a selling point. The reader is engaged by Powell’s gentle and inquisitive bullying which encourages self examination, reflection, and increased time spent on Wikipedia trying to source some obscure reference or fact.

A warning though – reading this book hijacks the internal narrative, forcing you to think almost entirely in interrogatives for a good few hours afterwards.

Bored birds, busy brains: Habituation to song initiates significant molecular changes in auditory forebrain of zebra finch

When we think of habituation, we tend to think of a process in which there is a decrease in psychological and behavioural response(s) over time following an organism’s exposure to a stimulus. Conceptualising habituation in this manner seems to imply the loss of something once an initial learning event has taken place. Although this may accurately describe what occurs at the psychological and behavioural levels, a study by a group of scientists from the University of Illinois (Dong et al. 2010), which examines habituation at the neurobiological level, shows that contrary to this conceptualisation, both initial exposure and habituation to song playbacks initiates a vast array of genetic activity in the zebra finch brain.

The systematic regulation of FoxP2 expression in singing zebra finches has been the subject of previous posts, but there is also a growing literature, of which Dong et al’s study is a part, documenting increases in ZENK gene (which encodes a transcription factor protein that in turn regulates the expression of other target genes) expression in zebra finch auditory forebrain areas in response to playbacks of song or the song of a conspecific. Studies showed that ZENK expression seems to mirror the typical decline in response associated with habituation in that after a certain amount of repetition, presentation of the song that originally elicited upregulation of ZENK no longer did so, and that ZENK returned to baseline levels – although upregulation of ZENK would occur if a different song or an aspect of novelty was introduced (i.e. the original song was presented in a different visual or spatial context).

What Dong et al. have demonstrated by conducting a large scale analysis of gene expression at initial exposure, habituation, and post-habituation stages however, is that unexpectedly profound genetic changes occur as a result of habituation in the absence of any additional novel stimuli following the surge of activity observed during initial exposure to novel song. Thus, the resounding merits of the Dong et al. (2010) study lie in the broadness of their approach, providing a true sense of magnitude with respect to genomic involvement in vocal communication and illuminating important influences that have gone unnoticed by studies with a narrower focus. I summarise the experimental design and findings of the paper below.

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Animal Signalling Theory 101 – The Handicap Principle

One of the most important concepts in animal signalling theory, proposed by Amotz Zahavi in a seminal 1975 paper and in later works (Zahavi 1977; Zahavi & Zahavi 1997), is the handicap principle. A general definition is that females have evolved mating preferences for males who display exaggerated ornaments or behaviours that are costly to maintain and develop, and that this cost ensures an ‘honest’ signal of male genetic quality.

As a student I found it quite difficult to identify a working definition for this important type of signal mainly due to the apparent ‘coining fest’ that has taken place over the years since Zahavi outlined his original idea in 1975. For this reason, I have decided to provide a brief outline of the terminological and conceptual differences that exist in relation to the handicap principle in an attempt to help anyone who might be struggling to navigate the literature.

As Zahavi did not define the handicap principle mathematically, a number of interpretations can be found in the key literature due to scholars disagreeing as to the true nature of his original idea. Until John Maynard Smith and Harper simplified and clarified things wonderfully in their 2003 publication Animal Signals, to my knowledge at least four different interpretations of the handicap were being used and explored empirically and through mathematical modelling, each with distinct differences that aren’t all that obvious to grasp without delving into the maths.

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Under the Influence: An overview of recent insights into the CNTNAP2 gene

In my last post I outlined a number of experimental studies using the Zebra Finch that have highlighted an additional dimension to the FoxP2 gene – not only is it upregulated in the avian brain throughout song development, but it is also downregulated in important song nuclei of adult birds in singing contexts that seem to involve ‘listening to one’s own song’ and subsequent error correction.  Given that the pattern of expression of this gene is very similar in the developing brain of both humans and birds, one conclusion that has been drawn from this research is that FOXP2 downregulation may equivocally serve to facilitate online language processing function in the adult human brain.

General background on an intriguing new celebrity

Naturally, the next step has been to try and identify the downstream genes regulated by FOXP2 in order to build up a more detailed picture of how interactions between complex genetic networks influence key language-related disorders in humans.   It is as a result of such efforts that another gene, although discovered almost a decade ago, has found its way into the spotlight: CNTNAP2.

In the developing human brain, CNTNAP2 is enriched in functionally specialised regions such as the frontal cortex, the stratium, and the dorsal thalamus (circuits within these regions are referred to as cortico-striato-thalmic circuits) central to executive function, planning and executing complex sequential movements, and thus potentially, language.  This presents a striking contrast to the more uniform expression of Cntnap2 observed in the developing rodent brain where there is no evidence for enrichment in specific regions, suggesting a functional difference in the human version that could be related to vocal learning and modification.

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Never Too Old to Learn: FoxP2 Gene Has Important Post-developmental On-line Function

Experimental studies (e.g. Jones & Munhall 2000) indicate that humans monitor their own speech through hearing in order to maintain accurate vocal articulation throughout the lifespan. Similarly, songbirds not only rely on song input from tutors and conspecifics in the early stages of song development, but also on the ability to hear and detect production errors in their own song and adjust it accordingly with reference to an internal ‘sensory target’ following the initial song learning phase.

This phenomenon also extends to ‘closed-ended learners’  – birds who do not acquire novel song elements after an initial learning period, but who still demonstrate song variability in adulthood. Experimental studies have shown that in such species, vocal learning is more prolonged and fundamental to song production than originally thought. For example, Okanoya and Yamaguchi (1997) showed that afflicted deafening in adult Bengalese Finches resulted in the production of abnormal song syntax in a matter of days. This is parallel to the human condition whereby linguistic fidelity, particularly with regards to prosodic aspects such as pitch and intensity, gradually degrades in human adults with postlinguistically acquired auditory impairments.

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The Problem With a Purely Adaptationist Theory of Language Evolution

According to the evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller and his colleagues (e.g Miller 2000b), uniquely human cognitive behaviours such as musical and artistic ability and creativity, should be considered both deviant and special. This is because traditionally, evolutionary biologists have struggled to fathom exactly how such seemingly superfluous cerebral assets would have aided our survival. By the same token, they have observed that our linguistic powers are more advanced than seems necessary to merely get things done, our command of an expansive vocabulary and elaborate syntax allows us to express an almost limitless range of concepts and ideas above and beyond the immediate physical world. The question is: why bother to evolve something so complicated, if it wasn’t really all that useful?

Miller’s solution is that our most intriguing abilities, including language, have been shaped predominantly by sexual selection rather than natural selection, in the same way that large cumbersome ornaments, bright plumages and complex song have evolved in other animals. As one might expect then, Miller’s theory of language evolution has been hailed as a key alternative to the dominant view that language evolved because it conferred a distinct survival advantage to its users through improved communication (e.g. Pinker 2003). He believes that language evolved in response to strong sexual selection pressure for interesting and entertaining conversation because linguistic ability functioned as an honest indicator of general intelligence and underlying genetic quality; those who could demonstrate verbal competence enjoyed a high level of reproductive success and the subsequent perpetuation of their genes. Continue reading “The Problem With a Purely Adaptationist Theory of Language Evolution”