Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Human Language vs. Animal
Communication Systems
- Argument: whether or not animal communication
systems can be defined as language.
- Human language qualities:
- Human speech sounds can be arranged in
infinite sequences to create new meanings.
(Animals can't. They only add variety.)
- Human languages are arbitrary. All
humans are of the same species but
speak over 6,000 languages. (Animals
have biologically-fixed sounds, gestures,
and postures, with an innate ability to
communicate with small variability.)
- We communicate in the abstract (e.g. past, present, future,
not in immediate environment, develop concepts without
physical form). (Animals are limited to reacting to the
environment.)
- Reason to study animal communication: We are
not the only animals that communicate, and we
may be able to understand something about our
own system, however different, from studying
systems of other species.
- Naturally-occurring ACS
- Black Austrian honeybee
communication (appis
mellifera carnica): Forager
bees' special dance on the
hives' wall to inform other
bees of the food's location;
quality of food, distance and
direction of source denoted
by 3 dances; Karl von Frisch's
experiments
- Round Dance (5m.): moving in
alternate circles
- Sickle Dance (5-20m.): moving
in 8-shaped patterns, vertical
angle to the sun reflecting angle
tofood source
- Tail-wagging Dance (>20m.): moving in straight
line, wagging her abdomen in semi-circular paths.
Duration of dance = Distance of flying
- Bee communication systems are innate,
and they require an audience for their
communication efforts.
- Bird Songs and Calls: Communication uses
vocalizations and visualizations.
- Bird Songs: may have an internal
structure; identify bird species; gives
information on identity and mated status
of bird; used in courtship rituals and
territory protection; important song
sections and their order
- Bird Calls: singular or short, sequenced
notes; signals to keep flock together, to
indicate take-off/landing, & to sound a
predator alarm; innate
- Dolphins & Whales: vocalizations (pure tones such
as whistles & squeaks, & pulsed tones such as
clicks, barks, yelps, & moans)
- Echolation: clicks to send out sound
waves that they bounce off objects to
identify them
- Whistles: to send out alarms or distress calls
- Prairie Dogs: Use up to 100 sounds in one alarm
to describe a particular predator; create new
calls/messages with specific information on
predator such as shape, size & color
- Primate Communication: on feeding, protecting territory,
showing dominance, attracting & keeping mates; calls, facial
expressions, & gestures; Vervets (vocalizations: 22 distinct
messages, 36 sounds that cannot be combined)
- Artificially-taught ACS
- Clever Hans - horse: communication
as a result of cueing by trainer
- Chimpanzees & Great Apes: share over 95% of
human DNA; their physical structure of the
musculature in their vocal tract is different from
humans and does not allow the same articulations;
good communication with hands (good manual
dexterity & imitation of movement); Allen &
Beatrice Gardner's work with Washoe, a
chimpanzee - creates new words with
compounding; ape Kanesa's badbad on poison
mushroom; need to be taught by a trainer; vary in
word order; chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky on
repetition
- African Grey Parrots: study on their
mental capabilities, such as
symbolic thinking; recognition and
relation of numbers 1-6 in oral and
written form; object permanence;
reasoning ability of 5y/o on some
tasks; challenge on whether they are
capable of abstract thinking