Will
we ever... talk to the animals?
What¡¦s that Flipper? The treasure is over there?¡¨ So went a
typical plotline for the popular TV series featuring the cute, bottlenosed dolphin who could communicate with his human guardians,
and who ¡V in the time-honoured fashion ¡V used his animal powers to apprehend
criminals.
The idea that animals like Flipper can communicate with
humans is not just the preserve of the small and big screen. History is
littered with celebrity animals who have communicated with human scientists,
with varying degrees of success. Many apes, including Washoe and Nim the chimps, and Kanzi the bonobo, have learned to
communicate by using sign
language or symbols
on a keyboard. Alex,
an African grey parrot learned over
100 English words, which he could use and combine appropriately; his poignant
last words to Irene Pepperberg, his scientist
handler, were ¡§You be good. I love you. See you
tomorrow."
Dolphins hold a particular fascination; we are captivated by
their intelligence and beauty, and swimming with dolphins
features regularly on lists of things to do before you die. Denise Herzing has a
lifetime of such experiences. For the last 27 years, she has been swimming with
a group of Atlantic spotted dolphins in
One-way chat
¡§Talk¡¨ is tricky to define. A SeaWorld trainer who prompts a
dolphin to jump for fish is arguably communicating with it. But such simple
one-way interactions are a far cry from the conversational world of Dr
Doolittle. Here, the dolphin responds, but says nothing intelligible back. Herzing¡¦s vision is much more ambitious ¡V she wants to
establish two-way communication with her dolphins, with both species exchanging
and understanding information.
The idea of talking to dolphins has a long and chequered
history. It was widely publicised in the 1960s by John Lilly, who argued that dolphins have such large brains that they
must be extremely intelligent and have a natural language. All we had to do was
to ¡§crack the code¡¨. Much of Lilly¡¦s work was highly questionable. He once
flooded a house to keep a captive dolphin, instigated failed attempts to teach
them spoken English, and even gave the animals LSD (while taking the drug
himself). But there is no denying his influence in popularising the idea of
two-way dolphin communication. ¡§He said that in a few years, we will have
established complex dialogue with them,¡¨ says Justin
Gregg from the Dolphin
Communication Project. ¡§And he was saying that every few years.¡¨
Lilly was right about dolphin intelligence, but not dolphin
language. A true
language involves small
elements that combine into larger chains, to convey complex, and sometimes
abstract, information. And there is no good evidence that dolphins have that,
despite their rich repertoire of whistles and clicks.
Little less conversation
Wild dolphin communication is hard to study. They are
fast-moving and hard to follow. They travel in groups, making it hard to assign
any call to a specific individual. And they communicate at frequencies beyond
what humans can hear. Despite these challenges, there is some evidence that
dolphins use sounds to represent concepts. Each individual has its own
¡§signature whistle¡¨ which might act like a name. Developed in the first year of
life, dolphins use these whistles as badges of identity, and may modulate them
to reflect motivation and mood. This year, a study showed that when wild
dolphins meet, one member of each group exchanges
signature whistles.
But beyond this, dolphin chat is still largely mysterious.
¡§To communicate with dolphins, we need to understand how they communicate with
each other in the natural world,¡¨ says psychologist Stan
Kuczaj
at the
We may not be able to understand them yet, but we know that
dolphins can learn to understand us. In the 1970s, Louis Herman taught an invented
sign language, complete with basic
syntax, to a bottlenose dolphin called Akeakamai. For
example, if he made the gestures for ¡§person surfboard fetch¡¨, Akeakamai would bring the board to him, while ¡§surfboard
person fetch¡¨ would prompt her to carry the person to the board. His
experiments showed that dolphins could understand hundreds of words, and how
those words could be combined using grammatical rules.
What¡¦s my motivation?
Herman¡¦s work was groundbreaking, but this was still one-way
communication. It focused on comprehension, not conversation. In the 1980s, Diana
Reiss had more luck by
showing that dolphins could use underwater
keyboards to make basic
requests. When they prodded keys with their snouts, a whistle would play and
Reiss gave a reward like a ball. Eventually, the dolphins used the artificial
whistles to ask for the associated rewards.
But as conversations go, these were shallow ones. ¡§The
dolphins were only really interested in communicating about needs that they
had, like a tool they needed or a fish they wanted,¡¨ says Kuczaj,
who was involved in a similar project at DisneyWorld¡¦s
It is difficult persuading dolphins to learn some arbitrary
signals, like a whistle signifying a ball, and then use them in a social
context, admits Gregg. ¡§They don¡¦t seem to run with it the same way that chimps
or bonobos have. The big stumbling block is
motivation. Dolphins don¡¦t seem to care.¡¨
Herzing disagrees. She notes that captive animals, which often lack
stimulation, will respond to systems like the underwater keyboards. She thinks
that these experiments disappointed because they were cumbersome. ¡§The dolphins
swim very fast and went to where they were requested, but humans are very slow
in the water. There wasn¡¦t enough real-time interaction.¡¨
Chat line
Herzing is trying to solve that problem with Cetacean Hearing and
Telemetry (CHAT) ¡V a lighter, portable version of the underwater keyboards. It
consists of a small phone-sized computer, strapped to a diver¡¦s chest and
connected to two underwater recorders, or hydrophones. The computer will detect
and differentiate dolphin sounds, including the ultrasonic ones we cannot hear,
and use flashing lights to tell the diver which animal made the call.
The CHAT device can also play artificial calls, allowing Herzing to coin dolphin-esque
¡§words¡¨ for things that are relevant to them, like ¡§seaweed¡¨ or
¡§wave-surfing". She hopes the dolphins will mimic the artificial whistles,
and use them voluntarily. By working with wild animals, and focusing on objects
in their natural environment, rather than balls or hoops, Herzing
hopes to pique their interest.
Herzing emphasises that her device is not a translator. It will not
act as a dolphin-human Rosetta stone. Instead, she wants both species create a
joint form of communication that they are both invested in. She hopes that CHAT
will tap into the ¡§natural propensity¡¨ that dolphins have ¡§for creating common
information when they have to interact¡¨. For example, in
As with past projects, all of this depends on whether the
dolphins play along. Kuczaj says, ¡§It¡¦s a remarkable
challenge because she is working with wild dolphins so they¡¦ve got the option
to participate or not.¡¨ Here, Herzing has an edge,
since the animals know her, and vice versa. ¡§We¡¦ve been observing them
underwater every summer since 1985,¡¨ she says. ¡§I know the individuals
personally ¡V their personalities and relationships. We¡¦ve got a pretty good
handle on what they¡¦d be interested in.¡¨ Perhaps this combination of
cutting-edge technology and old-school fieldwork will finally produce the
conversations that have eluded scientists for so long
Ed Yong
March 23rd 2012
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120322-will-we-ever-talk-to-animals