Social Functions of Signature Whistles and Whistle Imitation in Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus

多年来，科学家们已经知道，每只宽吻海豚都有一种独特的声音，叫做“签名哨子”。人们认为，这些哨声可以让海豚认出彼此，并在浑浊的水中保持联系。海豚也会模仿其他海豚的标志性口哨声。关于海豚这样做的原因，有两种观点：模仿另一只海豚的哨子可能是一种发起友好互动的方式，或者是一种咄咄逼人的挑战另一只海豚的方式。关于海豚交流的这些想法很难得到证实，因为我们人类无法确定水下声音来源的位置，而且海豚很少用明显的信号来告诉我们哪只海豚在发声。我们建议通过在自然的圈养环境中研究海豚来解决这个问题，在那里我们可以使用计算机和一组水下麦克风来定位每一个哨声，以及一个头顶上的视频系统来同时定位每只海豚。通过观察它们的行为，知道哪只海豚在发出声音，将使我们能够确定海豚发出自己的标志性哨声或模仿另一只海豚的哨声的社会背景，并确定其他海豚对这些哨声的反应。海豚模仿声音的能力在非人类哺乳动物中是不寻常的。模仿对人类语言和音乐的发展至关重要，但即使在我们最亲近的灵长类动物中，也几乎没有证据表明这种能力。因此，对海豚交流的比较研究可能有助于我们理解哺乳动物声音模仿的进化。

PI: Tyack, Peter L.Proposal #: 9975523For years, scientists have known that each bottlenose dolphin has an individually distinctive vocalization called a signature whistle. It is thought that these whistles allow dolphins to recognize each other and remain in contact in murky water. Dolphins also imitate the signature whistles of others. There are two ideas about why dolphins do this: imitating another dolphin's whistle may be a way to initiate a friendly interaction, or to aggressively challenge another dolphin. It has been difficult to confirm these ideas about dolphin communication because we humans cannot localize the source of sounds underwater, and dolphins make few visible signs to tell us which one is vocalizing. We propose to resolve this problem by studying dolphins in a naturalistic captive setting, where we can use computers and an array of underwater microphones to locate each whistle, and an overhead video system to simultaneously locate each dolphin. Knowing which dolphin is making a sound while observing their behavior will allow us to identify the social contexts in which dolphins make their own signature whistle or imitates another's whistle, and to determine how other dolphins respond to these whistles.Dolphins are unusual among non-human mammals in their ability to imitate sounds. Imitation is critical for the development of human language and music, but there is little evidence for this ability even among our closest primate relatives. Thus, comparative studies of dolphin communication may help us to understand the evolution of vocal imitation in mammals.