Figure 6. Single neuron information values greater for ML-Noise than song in wn-reared condition.

A. Pairwise difference in Gamma Information rates (bits/s) for Song vs. ML-Noise estimated for single neurons for control birds (left) and wn-reared birds (right). Neurons in the auditory forebrain of wn-reared birds encode for ML-Noise more optimally than Song, while auditory neurons in control birds encode both ML-Noise and Song equally well. Even upon adjusting for firing rate differences using a general linear model, wn-reared neurons have higher Gamma Information values than the control neurons for both Song and ML-Noise, with a larger effect for ML-Noise (see Results). B. To control for potentially small differences in the types of receptive fields found in wn-reared birds compared to control birds, we also estimated the Gamma Information (bits/s) for single neurons in control birds that had similar (‘matched’) SIs to the receptive fields found in wn-reared birds. The pairwise difference in Gamma Information for Song vs. ML-Noise is still negligible in the matched control case, while the neurons in wn-reared birds encode for ML-Noise more optimally than Song. Even upon adjusting for firing rate differences using a general linear model, neurons from the wn-reared condition still have higher Gamma Information values than the matched control neurons for both Song and ML-Noise, and once again the effect size is larger for the ML-Noise stimuli than for the Song stimuli (see Results).