BREAKING NEWS
We Are Not Alone
The Discovery of Dolphin Language
For immediate release—November 2011
Key words: Dolphin, Cetacean, Echolocation, Cymatics, Holography, Language, CymaScope.
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.
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