Some of the people who sultudy Dolphins think that they might actually have a language that can be learned.
Comment on Parrot and the word "No"
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 1 month ago
IMO, this is one of the better arguments for parrots having some of the most human-like intelligence in the animal world outside of primates. Having had both toddlers and parrots, they do exhibit a lot of similarities in behavior patterns, and I could swear my kids have done exactly what this person describes their bird doing.
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 month ago
It doesn’t seem to be a “might” but a “probably definitely”. Couldn’t find the link right now but one of the few actually uses of AI that I’ve seen was to map out animal languages (specifically dolphins and other cetaceans) to develop a translator, Something something if you throw different (human) languages at a space and then dimension reduce it you get quite similar structures even though the languages are vastly different on the surface, and things like dolphins apparently aren’t that far off and definitely not less complex.
Or, put differently: Yes, they’re actually building a universal translator based on the assumption that because language-capable beings end up speaking roughly similar things you get structural overlaps if you have a sufficiently abstract representation of language (such as a neural net that learned to distinguish it from other stuff).
Aside from that it’s been known for a longer time that dolphins are capable of relating complex information to another, e.g. you put one in one pool, the other in another, they can hear but not see another, and they can coordinate pressing buttons in one pool to get at fish in the other.
Also dolphins can recognise that a human gal is afraid of their teeth, disarm themselves with a tennis ball, and thus succeed in their task to get a handjob. That was part of Lilly’s programme to teach dolphins English (they really struggle with consonants) which is a book honestly everyone should have read. Don’t ask me which book in particular involves an injured dolphin co-habituating with the experimenter (aforementioned gal).
Tyfud@lemmy.world 1 month ago
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 1 month ago
That’s hella cool. I remember talking as far back as the 90s that dolphins might actually have a meaningful language, but I thought those hypotheses just ran into dead ends.
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
A lot of research like thay runs into dead ends. I think the issue is that their vocalisations are in such a broad range. But the study that I got the coles notes version indicated that dolphins may have named the researchers.
ickplant@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Exactly what I was thinking when I posted this!
Apytele@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
My favorite was the parent who told their kids their eyes change color when they lie. Now the kid closes their eyes real tight every time they lie.
abcd@feddit.de 1 month ago
I once told my daughter that a star that is only visible to grown ups appears on her forehead when she is lying. Soon she started to hide her forehead when lying 😂
Even today - although older - I ask her to show me her forehead and I can read her reaction like a book