“When two humans enter into a conversation, they follow the unwritten rules of practicing alternation (each one speaks in turn) and observing avoidance (one does not speak when the other speaks). These rules of alternation and avoidance are respected, more or less, as you can see in many examples if you watch televised debates. But when they are broken too often, the conversation stops (except on TV!).
“During our sound journey, we met animals that vocalized almost alone (the deer that bellows occasionally in solitude) or, on the contrary, all at the same time (the frog choruses). In these two cases, it is not necessarily easy to spot a conversation rule. However, we have also observed in the plain-tailed wren the duet in which female and male alternate in a perfectly synchronized manner. Let’s not forget the territorial disputes of chickadees, where a bird can wait until its neighbor has finished his song before starting its own.”
