I'm re-posting directly from
Whale Communicators' Facebook Page, here. This piece reports on the new discovery that dolphins basically use sonar to communicate
in series of complete holographic images, apparently having "
leap-frogged human symbolic language and
instead have evolved a form of communication outside the human
evolutionary path." Read it in full and
you'll be one humbled human.
Aliens among us...
"Researchers in the United States and Great Britain have made a
significant breakthrough in deciphering dolphin language in which a
series of eight objects have been sonically identified by dolphins. Team
leader, Jack Kassewitz of SpeakDolphin.com, ‘spoke’ to dolphins with
the dolphin’s own sound picture words. Dolphins in two separate research
centers understood
the words, presenting convincing evidence that dolphins employ a universal “sono-pictorial” language of communication.
The team was able to teach the dolphins simple and complex sentences
involving nouns and verbs, revealing that dolphins comprehend elements
of human language, as well as having a complex visual language of their
own. Kassewitz commented, “We are beginning to understand the visual
aspects of their language, for example in the identification of eight
dolphin visual sounds for nouns, recorded by hydrophone as the dolphins
echolocated on a range of submersed plastic objects.”
The
British member of the research team, John Stuart Reid, used a CymaScope
instrument, a device that makes sound visible, to gain a better
understanding of how dolphins see with sound. He imaged a series of the
test objects as sono-pictorially created by one of the research
dolphins.
In his bid to “speak dolphin” Jack Kassewitz of
SpeakDolphin.com, based in Miami, Florida, designed an experiment in
which he recorded dolphin echolocation sounds as they reflected off a
range of eight submersed objects, including a plastic cube, a toy duck
and a flowerpot. He discovered that the reflected sounds actually
contain sound pictures and when replayed to the dolphin in the form of a
game, the dolphin was able to identify the objects with 86% accuracy,
providing evidence that dolphins understand echolocation sounds as
pictures. Kassewitz then drove to a different facility and replayed the
sound pictures to a dolphin that had not previously experienced them.
The second dolphin identified the objects with a similar high success
rate, confirming that dolphins possess a sono-pictorial form of
communication. It has been suspected by some researchers that dolphins
employ a sono-visual sense to ‘photograph’ (in sound) a predator
approaching their family pod, in order to beam the picture to other
members of their pod, alerting them of danger. In this scenario it is
assumed that the picture of the predator will be perceived in the mind’s
eye of the other dolphins.
When Reid imaged the reflected
echolocation sounds on the CymaScope it became possible for the first
time to see the sono-pictorial images that the dolphin created. The
resulting pictures resemble typical ultrasound images seen in hospitals.
Reid explained: “When a dolphin scans an object with its high frequency
sound beam, emitted in the form of short clicks, each click captures a
still image, similar to a camera taking photographs. Each dolphin click
is a pulse of pure sound that becomes modulated by the shape of the
object. In other words, the pulse of reflected sound contains a
semi-holographic representation of the object. A portion of the
reflected sound is collected by the dolphin’s lower jaw, its mandible,
where it travels through twin fat-filled ‘acoustic horns’ to the
dolphin’s inner ears to create the sono-pictorial image.”
The
precise mechanism concerning how the sonic image is ‘read’ by the
cochleae is still unknown but the team’s present hypothesis is that each
click-pulse causes the image to momentarily manifest on the basilar and
tectorial membranes, thin sheets of tissue situated in the heart of
each cochlea. Microscopic cilia connect with the tectorial membrane and
‘read’ the shape of the imprint, creating a composite electrical signal
representing the object’s shape. This electrical signal travels to the
brain via the cochlea nerve and is interpreted as an image. (The example
in the graphic shows a flowerpot.) The team postulates that dolphins
are able to perceive stereoscopically with their sound imaging sense.
Since the dolphin emits long trains of click-pulses it is believed that
it has persistence of sono-pictorial perception, analogous to video
playback in which a series of still frames are viewed as moving images.
Reid said, “The CymaScope imaging technique substitutes a circular
water membrane for the dolphin's tectorial, gel-like membrane and a
camera for the dolphin's brain. We image the sono-picture as it imprints
on the surface tension of water, a technique we call ‘bio-cymatic
imaging,’ capturing the picture before it expands to the boundary. We
think that something similar happens in the dolphin’s cochleae where the
sonic image, contained in the reflected click-pulse, travels as a
surface acoustic wave along the basilar and tectorial membranes and
imprints in an area that relates to the carrier frequency of the
click-pulse. With our biocymatic imaging technique we believe we see a
similar image to that which the dolphin sees when it scans an object
with sound. In the flowerpot image the hand of the person holding it can
even be seen. The images are rather fuzzy at present but we hope to
enhance the technique in future.”
Dr Horace Dobbs is Director
of International Dolphin Watch and a leading authority on
dolphin-assisted therapy. “I find the dolphin mechanism for sonic
imaging proposed by Jack Kassewitz and John Stuart Reid plausible from a
scientific standpoint. I have long maintained that dolphins have a
sono-visual language so I am naturally gratified that this latest
research has produced a rational explanation and experimental data to
verify my conjectures. As early as 1994, in a book I wrote for children,
Dilo and the Call of the Deep, I referred to Dilo's ‘Magic Sound’ as
the method by which Dilo and his mother pass information between each
other using sonic imaging, not just of external visual appearances, but
also of internal structures and organs.”
As a result of Reid’s
bio-cymatic imaging technique Kassewitz, in collaboration with research
intern Christopher Brown, of the University of Central Florida, is
beginning to develop a new model of dolphin language that they are
calling Sono-Pictorial Exo-holographic Language, (SPEL). Kassewitz
explained, “The ‘exo-holographic’ part of the acronym derives from the
fact that the dolphin pictorial language is actually propagated all
around the dolphin whenever one or more dolphins in the pod send or
receive sono-pictures. John Stuart Reid has found that any small part of
the dolphin’s reflected echolocation beam contains all the data needed
to recreate the image cymatically in the laboratory or, he postulates,
in the dolphin’s brain. Our new model of dolphin language is one in
which dolphins can not only send and receive pictures of objects around
them but can create entirely new sono-pictures simply by imagining what
they want to communicate. It is perhaps challenging for us as humans to
step outside our symbolic thought processes to truly appreciate the
dolphin’s world in which, we believe, pictorial rather than symbolic
thoughts are king. Our personal biases, beliefs, ideologies, and
memories penetrate and encompass all of our communication, including our
description and understanding of something devoid of symbols, such as
SPEL. Dolphins appear to have leap-frogged human symbolic language and
instead have evolved a form of communication outside the human
evolutionary path. In a sense we now have a ‘Rosetta Stone’ that will
allow us to tap into their world in a way we could not have even
conceived just a year ago. The old adage, ‘a picture speaks a thousand
words’ suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.”
David M. Cole,
founder of the The AquaThought Foundation, a research organization that
studied human-dolphin interaction for more than a decade said,
“Kassewitz and Reid have contributed a novel model for dolphins' sonic
perception, which almost certainly evolved out of the creature's need to
perceive its underwater world when vision was inhibited. Several
conventional linguistic approaches to understanding dolphin
communication have dead-ended in the last 20 years so it is refreshing
to see this new and highly-nuanced paradigm being explored.”
The human capacity for language involves the acquisition and use of a
complex system of vocal sounds to which we attribute specific meanings.
Language, the relationship between sounds and meanings evolved
differently for each tribe of humans and for each nation. It is
generally believed that the human language faculty is fundamentally
different from that of other species and of a much higher complexity.
The development of vocal language is believed to have coincided with an
increase in brain volume. Many researchers have wondered why dolphins
have brains comparable in size with those of humans, considering that
Nature creates organs according to need. The Kassewitz team’s findings
suggest the large dolphin brain is necessary for the acquisition and
utilization of a sono-pictorial language that requires significant brain
mass.
Dolphins enjoy constant auditory and visual stimulation
throughout their lives, a fact that may contribute to their hemispheric
brain coordination. The dolphin’s auditory neocortical fields extend far
into the midbrain, influencing the motor areas in such a way as to
allow the smooth regulation of sound-induced motor activity as well as
sophisticated phonation needed for production of signature whistles and
sonopictures. These advantages are powered not only by a brain that is
comparable in size to that of a human but also by a brain stem
transmission time that is considerably faster than the human brain.
Kassewitz said, “Our research has provided an answer to an age-old
question highlighted by Dr Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute, ‘Are we
alone?’ We can now unequivocally answer, ‘no.’ SETI’s search for
non-human intelligence in outer space has been found right here on earth
in the graceful form of dolphins.”
Full results of this research are available on request from Jack Kassewitz.
Jack Kassewitz: speakdolphin@mac.com
305-807-5812 - Miami, Florida
John Stuart Reid: john@sonic-age.com
Thank you Shannon Wise River Murray, and thank you Matthew Ryan - and thank you Nina Joy for the original post."
'We Are Not Alone'
