Species recognition is an essential behavioral outcome of social discrimination, flocking, mobbing, mating, and/or parental care. In songbirds, auditory species recognition cues are processed through specialized forebrain circuits dedicated to acoustic discrimination. Here we addressed the direction of behavioral and neural metrics of zebra finches’ (Taeniopygia guttata) responses to acoustic cues of unfamiliar conspecifics vs. heterospecifics. Behaviorally, vocal response rates were greater for conspecific male zebra finch songs over heterospecific Pin-tailed Whydah (Vidua macroura) songs, which paralleled greater multiunit spike rates in the auditory forebrain in response to the same type of conspecific over heterospecific auditory stimuli. In contrast, forebrain activation levels were reversed to species-specific song playbacks during two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments: we detected consistently greater responses to whydah songs over finch songs and did so independently of whether subjects had been co-housed or not with heterospecifics. These results imply that the directionality of behavioral and neural response selectivity metrics are not always consistent and appear to be experience-independent in this set of stimulus-and-subject experimental paradigms.

物种识别是社会歧视、蜂拥而至、围攻、交配和/或父母照顾的基本行为结果。在鸣禽中，听觉物种识别线索是通过专门用于声学辨别的专门前脑电路处理的。在这里，我们讨论了斑胸草雀 ( Taeniopygia guttata ) 对不熟悉的同种与异种的声学线索的反应的行为和神经指标的方向。在行为上，同种雄性斑胸草雀歌曲的声音反应率高于异种针尾Whydah（Vidua macroura) 歌曲，这与听觉前脑中更大的多单位尖峰率平行，以响应相同类型的同种异种听觉刺激。相比之下，在两次功能性磁共振成像实验中，前脑激活水平被逆转为特定物种的歌曲播放：我们检测到对Whydah 歌曲的反应始终高于对雀类歌曲的反应，并且这样做与受试者是否与异种特异性共同居住无关。这些结果意味着行为和神经反应选择性指标的方向性并不总是一致的，并且在这组刺激和受试者实验范式中似乎与经验无关。