Listening toBirdsong

A male zebra finchchirps away to himself.Suddenly he notices a female bird nearby.He realizes hehas an audience and immediately changes his song.Can the female tell

the difference inhis perfonnance?According to a new study,the female zebra finch knows.And sheprefers the special trills he creates when he sings to her.A male zebra

finch changes hissong when singing to a female in ways that people can barely detect.But thefemale finch can tell the difference.

Scientists hadnoticed slight variations in the songs of male zebra finches based on whetherthey were singing alone or whether there was a female(and potential mate)

nearby.With anaudience,the males sped up the pace of their songs and controlled the notesthey used.

For thisstudy,researchers Sarah C .Woolley and Allison Doupe at the University of California,San Francisco decided tofocus attention on the listening females,which have

not been wellstudied in the past.

In the study,Woolleyand Doupe set up,a long cage with a sound speaker at each end.One broadcast thesound of a male zebra finch singing to himself,like someone singing

in the shower.Theother speaker broadcast a male performing for a female audience,as if he was givinga concert.

Female birds wereplaced between the two speakers.Some of the birds had mates.Others didn't.Thefemales shifted around a bit,and then most of them hopped over to sit

beside just onespeaker.All the birds that made a clear choice liked songs meant for a femaleaudience,even if they'd never met the male.

Mated females alsohad a chance to listen to two different performance songs,one from an unknownmale,and one from their mate .They spent more time listening to the

concert version oftheir mates' songs.This suggests that after a while,females learn torecognize-and prefer-the songs of their mates.

Scientists thenstudied the brains of the females.They found certain areas of the brain perkedup when the birds listened to the concert songs.These brain areas may be

involved inrecognizing and evaluating the songs,and storing the memories of them.

This research dealswith what's called directed communication,when the communicator,orsender,focuses the message for a specific audience.One example is the way moms

speak to theirbabies.Mothers around the world use the same sort of high-pitched sing-songchatter,and the babies respond best to those sounds.Songbirds are one of theonly

other species knownto learn their communication,in this case their songs.What is meantby"concert songs"in the seventh paragraph?

A.Songs sung byzebra finches at a concert.

B.Songs sung by malefinches for female finches.

C.Songs sung byfemale finches for male finches.

D.Songs sung by malefinches to many female finches.