Do Non-singing Birds have got Rhythm too? Insights from Timing Analysis of Domestic Chicks' Contact Calls

What kind of rhythms do animals produce in their vocalizations, and why? The study of spontaneous rhythm production in non-human animals is essential to understand both the phylogenetic history and the origin in our species of vocal rhythmic abilities. However, although comparative research on timing in animal vocalisations has identified many species capable of producing signals with a rhythmic structure, we still know very little about how these traits evolved. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the presence of rhythmic patterns in the contact calls of a non-singing and musically naïve bird: the domestic chick (Gallus gallus). Using state-of-the-art tools developed for acoustical analysis, we aim at deciphering the presence of rhythmical patterns in a type of vocal emission that is highly important both for the assessment of emotional arousal and, presumably, in the categorisation as a living organism and subsequent localisation of the emitter.