Collaborative Research: Opening a Quantitative Window into the Mind and Communication of Dolphins

合作研究：打开一扇了解海豚思维和交流的定量窗口

• 批准号: 1607280
• 负责人: Marcelo Magnasco
• 金额: $ 44.76万
• 依托单位: Rockefeller University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1607280&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Opening; Quantitative; Window

The cognitive and communication prowess of the large-brained, highly gregarious bottlenose dolphin is legendary and has captured the interest and imagination of scientists and the public at large. Notably, dolphins are one of a handful of species that are vocal learners; thus the dolphin presents us with a unique and alternative model to songbirds to advance our understanding of the processes that underlie vocal learning and communication in a large-brained mammal showing high social and behavioral complexity. Despite decades of research on dolphin vocal communication, the constituent elements, the sequential and temporal organization of the elements, and the nature of vocal transactions between dolphins remain enigmatic. In order to decipher dolphin communication and further elucidate these issues, the PIs will use observational approaches in the wild and in an aquarium as well as two experimental approaches in an aquarium. A first approach studies how dolphins coordinate their behavior in the face of novelty: How do dolphins synchronize their behavior when requested to present novel behaviors in tandem? How do they succeed in working as a team when confronted with a new challenge? In a second approach, the researchers will provide dolphins with a two-way, interactive touchscreen and audio system. Their proclivity for vocal learning and their other cognitive processes will be probed by giving them choice and control over the interactive system and observing and documenting how they use and respond to the contingencies of their interactions, which shall be obtaining novel acoustic signals temporally paired with objects, interactions or activities. The aquarium studies are particularly conducive to outreach efforts and informal science education since the dolphin-related activities will be conducted in an open amphitheater environment at a leading aquarium. The exhibit has changed from dolphin shows to more educational demonstrations about animal care, behavior, and conservation. The research activities will take place concurrently with visits of the public and field trips of school children and therefore, the research endeavor will be communicated to the public in real time. Virtually all the activities proposed can, with modest effort and cost, be made into an open exhibit at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, instructing visiting schoolchildren on the research process and on collaborative research across scientific boundaries. The field trips to the research sites are organized jointly with undergraduate and graduate courses in field research for Hunter College students and are excellent opportunities to showcase and engage actual cutting edge research to these students. This tightly-knit interdisciplinary collaboration between the labs of animal cognitive psychologist and marine mammal scientist and physicist, computational neuroscientist and bio-acoustician, seeks to and extend high-throughput settings to dolphin communication studies in captivity.A key intellectual merit of this proposal is to address these fundamental questions in the field of animal cognition and communication through powerful methods drawn from statistical mechanics, machine learning, and signal processing. Central technical problems in "decoding" dolphin communication are the difficulty in sound localization and attributing the detected vocalizations to specific individual dolphins, the lack of automated behavioral analysis methods, and the crucial step of creating an integrated picture of attributed vocal and behavioral transactions or "conversations" that can be subjected to high-through analysis. Another technical problem is the design and deployment of an advanced two-way interactive system consisting of an underwater touchpad and real-time audio input/output, plus the associated set of interaction interfaces. Finally, this project also addresses important technical problems in the deployment of aerial and aquatic drones for field studies.

大脑袋、高度群居的海豚的认知和交流能力是传奇性的，它吸引了科学家和公众的兴趣和想象力。值得注意的是，海豚是为数不多的发声学习者之一;因此，海豚为我们提供了一个独特的鸣禽替代模型，以促进我们对大脑哺乳动物发声学习和交流过程的理解，这些哺乳动物表现出高度的社会和行为复杂性。尽管对海豚声音交流的研究已经进行了几十年，但组成元素，元素的顺序和时间组织以及海豚之间声音交易的性质仍然是个谜。为了破译海豚的沟通，并进一步阐明这些问题，PI将在野外和水族馆中使用观察方法，以及在水族馆中使用两种实验方法。第一种方法研究海豚在面对新奇事物时如何协调它们的行为：当海豚被要求串联呈现新奇行为时，它们如何同步它们的行为？当他们面临新的挑战时，他们如何成功地作为一个团队工作？在第二种方法中，研究人员将为海豚提供双向交互式触摸屏和音频系统。他们的声乐学习和他们的其他认知过程的倾向将通过给他们选择和控制的互动系统，观察和记录他们如何使用和响应他们的互动，这将是获得新的声学信号时间配对的对象，互动或活动的突发事件进行探讨。水族馆的研究特别有利于推广工作和非正式的科学教育，因为与海洋生物蛋白有关的活动将在一个主要水族馆的开放式圆形剧场环境中进行。展览已经从海豚表演变成了更多关于动物护理，行为和保护的教育演示。研究活动将与公众参观和学童实地考察同时进行，因此，研究奋进将真实的及时向公众传达。几乎所有拟议的活动都可以在巴尔的摩的国家水族馆以适度的努力和成本进行公开展览，向来访的学童介绍研究过程和跨科学界限的合作研究。实地考察的研究地点与本科和研究生课程在实地研究亨特学院的学生联合举办，是展示和从事实际的前沿研究，这些学生的绝佳机会。动物认知心理学家和海洋哺乳动物科学家和物理学家，计算神经科学家和生物声学家的实验室之间紧密的跨学科合作，旨在将高通量设置扩展到海豚通信研究中。机器学习和信号处理。在“解码”海豚通信的核心技术问题是在声音定位和归因于特定的个体海豚，缺乏自动化的行为分析方法，并创建一个综合的图片归因的声音和行为的交易或“对话”，可以进行高通过分析的关键步骤检测到的发声的困难。另一个技术问题是设计和部署由水下触摸板和实时音频输入/输出以及相关联的一组交互接口组成的高级双向交互系统。最后，该项目还解决了部署空中和水上无人机进行实地研究的重要技术问题。