Animal Communication

Presentation by:

Chan, Tarah, Melissa, Christina & Allison.

Methods of Various Animal Communication

Presented by Chan

DEFINITION OF ANIMAL COMMMUNICATION

*Definition by Pearce (1987): Animal communication is "the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient".
*This loose definition permits the inclusion of many types of behavior and allows "communication" to be applied to a very large range of animals, including some very simple animals.

Natural Animal Communication

* Chemical signals (used be some very simple creatures, including > protozoa), smell (related to chemical signals, eg. pheromones attract, skunk secretions repel), touch, movement, posture (eg. dogs, geese), facial gestures (eg. dogs snarling), visual signals (eg. feathers), sound (eg. many vertebrate and invertebrate calls).

Such signals are designed to:

* Attract (especially mates)
Repel (especially competitors or enemies)
Signal aggression or submission
Advertise species
Warn of predators
Communicate about the environment or the availability of food.
Such signals may be:
* Instinctive, that is genetically programmed or learned from others.

How Animals Communicate

Examples: Most animals (including people) use body language as well as sound and smell in order to communicate with one another. Here are some ways animals express themselves.

* They release pheromones (airborne chemicals) to send messages to others.

* Pheromones play an important part in reproduction and other social behavior.

Examples (Cont’d)

*Bees dance when they have found nectar. The scout bee will dance in the hive, and the dance directs other bees to the location of the nectar.

* Chimpanzees greet each other by shaking hands.

* Male fiddler crabs wave their giant claw to attract female fiddler crabs.

* White-tailed deer show alarm by flicking up their tails.

* Dogs stretch their front legs out in front of them and lower their bodies when they want to play.

Primate Studies

Presented by Tarah

Primate Studies

Introduction

* Great Apes closest relatives to homo sapiens in animal kingdom, have similar intelligence.

* Great Apes communication complex, but different than human language:

-use facial expressions, gestures, calls to express anger, dominance, fear, danger and acceptance.

* Communication system lacks displacement and productivity, no creation of new meaning.

Early Projects

* Experiments to test if Chimps can learn human language, first in 1930’s.

* Unsuccessful effort of non-forcible teaching, simply exposition to human language for 9 mo.

* 1950’s – Chimp upbringing like that of human. Taught to vocalize on demand, shaped lips to yield consonant sounds. After 3 years, able to speak only 3 words, with heavy Chimp accent.

* Determined not good language capability, vocal limitations of Chimp.

* Next effort towards ASL, b/c use gestures naturally and are dexterous. Considered successful, learned 132 signs by age 5 and invented own combinations, such as Dirty Roger.

* 1966 – experiment to teach Chimp words/sentences using associations with shaped and colored chips.

* 1972 – long project to teach ASL to Koko, first gorilla to acquire human language w/ hundreds of signs, combinations, rhymes and insults. Understood spoken English.

* Experiment using computer to teach Chimp. Symbols invented, called lexigrams, which are combinations of 9 geometric figures w/ a large X.

Criticism of Early Projects

* New experiment proved many dissimilarities w/human child’s language acquisition.

* Chimp almost never initiated signing, unless request for food or social reward.

* Chimp never asked questions, never took turns and often interrupted trainer.

* No evidence of grammar and rarely went beyond two-word combinations.

* Late 1970’s - Herbert Terrace determined that training taught problem solving, not language.

Clark 49: Selected Material

Presented by Melissa

Bees

*Honey Bees dance to convey the richness, and type of honey they have found to the other bees and gives directions and distance to the location.
*The bees then ignore other sources and go to the one they are told about
*This dance also involves scent
*Although it is 78% effective, the system is meant for horizontal planes-- a bee cannot convey a vertical (up or down) message
*Different kinds of bees have varying dances, like humans have different languages
ex. Italian Bees vs. Australian Bees
CONCLUSION: Unproductive because it does not recombine bits and > pieces to produce new meanings.

Bee Dance. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bees/dances.html

Birds

Birds can physically make and hear sounds like humans can.
BIRD CALLS
*Brief *Simple
*Male and females make them
*Confined context-- an alert *Many different bird species can identify what the calls mean
*Most calls are similar to other bird calls

BIRDS (cont’d)

*Complex *Long *Done most often by males
*Used for mating rituals, rivals, and sometimes to scare predators
*It's purpose is to maintain breeding territory
*Different species, different songs > > Birdsongs often vary by region, like dialects in human language.

CONCLUSION: Although birds produce sounds that other birds can identify, they too have limited meanings and are done only for purpose.

Mammals

Mammal language seems to be more complex that other animals because we can associate more with their environment, but after careful studying, it really isn't.

Mammals (Cont’d)

*The value of displays does not depend on a desire to tell another mammal something, just as in other animals *Whales: The distinguishable song of the humpback whale has been observed and studied for many years- Themes, Phrases, sub phrases, Units. The most notable piece of information gained from their study, is that whale songs evolve over just a period of one breeding season.

Human Interest in Communicating with Animals

Presented by Christina

Human Interest in Animal Communication

* General Interest in Animals

* Chimpanzees- Jane Goodall

* Dolphins

* Dogs

* Cats

* Future Research

Characteristics of Human vs. Non-Human Communication

Presented by Allison

-Animals are not just "wild animals".... Humans are animals too!
- Because of this, we communicate in many of the same ways and have several similar characteristics.
- Although animals do not use specific "languages" with set grammatical, syntactical, or phonological rules, they do incorporate crude versions of language into their daily communication so that they can understand each other in their own way.
- Just like humans, animals use sounds (mainly grunts, mating calls, or the like), signs, touch, and even smell to communicate!

Some Basic Ways Animals Communicate

-Chemical signals (used be some very simple creatures, including protozoa)
-Smell (related to chemical signals, eg. pheremones attract, skunk secretions repel)
-Touch
-Movement
-Posture (eg. dogs, geese)
-Facial gestures (eg. dogs snarling)
-Visual signals (eg feathers)
-Sound (eg. very many vertebrate and invertebrate calls)

- Animals use these techniques to do such things as: attract mates, repel enemies, signal aggression/submission, warn about predators, or to communicate about the environment/availability of food.

Animals and Language

The biggest difference between animal and human communication is our usage of language.
- Humans are capable of using complex, structured languages that have their own set of grammatical, syntactical, and phonological rules.
-Even though there are many different kinds of human language, each language has essentially the same components, which is why we can all communicate with each other through translation.
- This is NOT true for animals!
- Some scientists believe that, just because animals do not naturally acquire language, does not mean they can't be taught it. However, most studies that have tried to prove this, have failed.

Animals and Language (Cont’d)

- Linguists like Chomsky and MacPhail believe that language is a language is a unique human behavior and that animal communication falls short of being a "language" in many ways.

-Chomsky believes that no non-human communication can ever possess grammar, or a system of grammar, and therefore, cannot be considered a language.
-MacPhail believes that animals do not have a specific mechanism in their brain that is responsible for natural language acquisition.

HOCKETT'S 13 NECESSARY FEATURES OF LANGUAGE

1. Vocal-auditory channel: sounds emitted from the mouth and perceived by the auditory system. This applies to many animal communication systems, but there are many exceptions. Also, it does not apply to human sign language, which meets all the other 12 requirements. It also does not apply to written language.

2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: this requires that the recipient can tell the direction that the signal comes from and thus the originator of the signal.
3. Rapid fading (transitoriness): Signal last a short time. This is true of all systems involving sound. It doesn't take into account the tape recorder and is also not true for written language. It tends not to apply to animal signals involving chemicals and smells which often fade slowly.

HOCKETT'S 13 NECESSARY FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Cont’d)

4. Interchangeability: All utterances that are understood can be produced. This is different to some communication systems where, for example, males produce one set of behaviours and females another and they are unable to interchange these messages so that males use the female signal and vice versa.
5. Total feedback: The sender of a message also perceives the message. That is, you hear what you say. This is not always true for some kinds of animal displays.
6. Specialization: The signal produced is specialized for communication and is not the side effect of some other behavior (eg. the panting of a dog incidentally produces the panting sound).

HOCKETT'S 13 NECESSARY FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Cont’d)

7. Semanticity: There is a fixed relationship between a signal and a meaning.

8. Arbitrariness: There is an arbitrary relationship between a signal and its meaning. That is, the signal, is related to the meaning by convention or by instinct but has no inherent relationship with the meaning. This can be seen in different words in different languages referring to the same meaning, or to different calls of different sub-species of a single bird species having the same meaning.

9. Discreteness: Language can be said to be built up from discrete units (eg. phonemes in human language). Exchanging such discrete units causes a change in the meaning of a signal. This is an abrupt change, rather than a continuous change of meaning (eg. "cat" doesn't gradually change in meaning to "bat", but changes abruptly in meaning at some point. Speech loudness and pitch can, on the other hand be changed continuously without abrupt changes of meaning.

HOCKETT'S 13 NECESSARY FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Cont’d)

10. Displacement: Communicating about things or events that are distant in time or space. Bee dancing is an example of this.

11. Productivity: Language is an open system. We can produce potentially an infinite number of different messages by combining the elements differently. This is not a feature of, for example, the calls of gibbons who have a finite number of calls and thus a closed system of communication.

12. Traditional transmission: Each generation needs to learn the system of communication from the preceding generation. Many species produce the same uniform calls regardless of where they live in the range (even a range spanning several continents). Such systems can be assumed to be defined by instinct and thus by genetics. Some animals, on the other hand fail to develop the calls of their species when raised in isolation.

HOCKETT'S 13 NECESSARY FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Cont’d)

13. Duality of patterning: Large numbers of meaningful signals (eg. morphemes or words) produced from a small number of meaningless units (eg. phonemes). Human language is very unusual in this respect. Apes, for example, do not share this feature in their natural communication systems.

The End