An Innate Intelligence

The pioneer of dolphin research, John Lilly, was a neurophysiologist at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. In the 1950s, he was the first to suggest that dolphins had a language of their own. His books, Man and Dolphin: Adventures on a New Scientific Frontier and The Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence, brought people to an awareness of the sophisticated intelligence that dolphins possess.

Lilly opened a dolphin research facility and attempted to teach a dolphin named Peter to speak English with some success. However, in the 60’s Lilly’s experiments grew more and more controversial—including injecting dolphins with LSD—so his funding dried up and the study of dolphin communication fell into disrepute.

Then in 1970, a University of Hawaii psychologist named Louis Herman reignited scientific interest and began experiments of his own, teaching dolphins language and raising them as children. Yet, despite almost half a century of study since these pioneering efforts, nobody has been able to prove definitively what the fundamental units of dolphin vocalization are, or how those units get assembled. This is what makes the recent findings about the holographic mental images created by echolocation such an exciting breakthrough.

Starting A Conversation

Until recently, there has been no evidence that a dolphin has been able to transmit anything like an image to other dolphins through echolocation. However, earlier this year, researchers in the USA and UK made this significant finding when they used a new piece of technology, a CymaScope, to translate a dolphin’s clicking sounds into a holographic image of the submerged man she was echolocating. Team leader, Jack Kassewitz of SpeakDolphin.com, is delighted with the result.

Previously they’d used other objects such as crosses and flower pots and were to some degree successful, but this image of a man has made it clear that a dolphin’s clicks translate as a mental image that humans can now also decipher. This has tremendous implications for people to now begin learning how to communicate with dolphins.

Just as in the recent sci-fi movie Arrival, where a linguist struggled to decode the multidimensional images aliens were communicating, scientists are now able to begin deciphering how dolphins convey information to each other and to then use this information to start a conversation.

 

Text C

 Part II

The Holographic Experiment

For the ground-breaking experiment, a man wearing a weight belt was submerged underwater and a trained dolphin then used a series of clicks to identify the man through echolocation. The dolphin’s echo signal was recorded using high specification audio equipment and the recording was then sent to the CymaScope laboratory in the UK.

There, acoustic physics researcher John Stuart Reid, used the CymaScope to transcribe the sound sample by imprinting it onto a water membrane by using the quasiholographic properties of sound and its relationship with water. The holographic image that emerged was the mirror image of the submerged man complete with details such as the weight belt.

This demonstrated that the CymaScope can capture what-the-dolphin-saw images and suggested that dolphins can also see surface features, such as the weight belt. Kassewitz, Reid and their team are now speculating that dolphins may employ a “sono-pictorial” form of language, a language of pictures that they share with each other. As Kassewitz explains:

How Dolphins Speak to Each Other

It can be speculated that dolphins use auditory information to perceive the world similarly to how humans use vision. Though perhaps they would have an even greater degree of perception as the auditory centres of their brains are highly developed, with auditory nerves containing as many fibres as human optic nerves.

It’s likely that dolphins integrate information from all their senses to create a complete and complex interpretation of their surroundings. What the scientists have found most exciting is the probability that these sound images are shared with other dolphins as part of their communication.

Sending Visual Images

Some humans who are blind are also able to use echolocation to identify their surroundings. They make their way safely through an unfamiliar environment by using clicking sounds and listening for the reflected echoes from the objects they encounter. Studies conducted on these people show that their visual cortex is also activated as they echolocate through an environment, demonstrating that brain areas usually reserved for vision can be activated by other sensory modes.

Because of the similarity between human and dolphin brains, this suggests that dolphins may also be creating visual images through echolocation, which they then communicate to other dolphins.

The success of the experiment translating echolocation clicks into a holographic image of a man makes this speculation a reality. This is what has excited scientists and dolphin lovers alike, as humans take one step closer to being able to communicate with our playful friends in the sea.

Unit 7

Text A

Aquaculture

VOCABULARY LIST TO TEXT A

livestock n	[ˈlʌɪvstɒk]	домашний скот
tank  n	[tæŋk]	водоём, резервуар
coastal adj	[ˈkəʊstl]	береговой, прибрежный
pictographs n	[ˈpɪktəɡrɑːf]	пиктограмма
oyster n	[ˈɔɪstə]	устрица
minnow  n	[ˈmɪnəʊ]	пескарь
enhance   v	[ɪnˈhɑːns]	увеличивать, усиливать
endangered   adj	[ɪnˈdeɪndʒəd]	исчезающий
enterprise n	[ˈɛntəprʌɪz]	предприятие
seek  v	[siːk]	искать
hatchery   n	[ˈhatʃəri]	инкубаторная станция
overfish v	[əʊvəˈfɪʃ]	истощать рыбные запасы
estimate   v	[ˈestɪmət]	оценивать
utmost adj	[ˈʌtməʊst]	крайний, предельный
welfare n	[ˈwɛlfɛː]	благополучие
consumer  n	[kənˈsjuːmə]	потребитель