'The first species we might be able to communicate with, interact with vocally, might be a bird': An animal researcher explains how she decoded birdsong
In this interview, Elie discusses how zebra finches learn and use vocalizations, what their calls reveal about intelligence and social relationships and how artificial intelligence (AI) contributed to decoding birdsong.
Key points
- They're able to really use those vocalizations, such as "This is not mine, but I communicate with another species this way." It shows you how smart they can be, and by studying vocal communication in animals, we are getting a window of what….
- I think a high cognitive level is when an animal is able to reproduce a sound that is not in their "native language," let's say, and use it for a goal.
- [Someone suggested I] work on the zebra finch, and I said, "OK, I've never taken the time to really observe birds very well; might as well start now." I realized that it's difficult to observe birds because they're not close to you.
So, here in California, for instance, a mockingbird is a bird that is really known to be able to reproduce a bunch of different sounds and is actually incorporating this in their vocalizations.
Additional details
- Julie Elie is an animal behavior researcher and associate project scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Studying birdsong can help researchers like Elie better understand how the birds navigate their complex environments.
- I was interested in how animals interact with each other and what kind of social organization they establish.
- She recently won the 2026 Coller Dolittle Challenge for Two-Way Interspecies Communication for her work in studying and deciphering zebra finch communication.
- JE: A level of complexity we were trying to understand was, what are the neural mechanisms that enable those birds to do this process of listening to something and copying it, and reproducing it, and doing a comparison between what they're producing and what they're hearing?
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