Data from Oura and Gilman, "Information structure predicts timing in humpback whale song," (in review)

These are points of high potential information content. A similar pattern has been reported in birdsong, raising the possibility that temporal organisation reflects information structure across diverse communication systems.

Humpback whale song offers a compelling system to test this idea because it is hierarchically structured, culturally transmitted, and evolutionarily independent of birdsong and human language. We analysed 83 recordings of humpback whale song and found that the gaps between phrases became longer at points where there was more uncertainty about the next phrase type, consistent with the patterns reported in human speech and birdsong.