A NewScientist article discusses how pattern recognition software is being used to help us better understand the communications of animals, including a program that can automatically translate dolphin whistles (but only if the meaning is already known):
IT was late August 2013 and Denise Herzing was swimming in the Caribbean. The dolphin pod she had been tracking for the past 25 years was playing around her boat. Suddenly, she heard one of them say, "Sargassum".
... She was wearing a prototype dolphin translator called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) and it had just translated a live dolphin whistle for the first time.
It detected a whistle for sargassum, or seaweed, which she and her team had invented to use when playing with the dolphin pod. They hoped the dolphins would adopt the whistles, which are easy to distinguish from their own natural whistles and they were not disappointed. When the computer picked up the sargassum whistle, Herzing heard her own recorded voice saying the word into her ear.
...
Herzing is quick to acknowledge potential problems with the sargassum whistle. It is just one instance and so far hasn't been repeated. Its audio profile looks different from the whistle they taught the dolphins it has the same shape but came in at a higher frequency. Brenda McCowan of the University of California, Davis, says her experience with dolphin vocalisations matches that observation.
Since the translatable vocalization has only been used once, it could be nothing more than a fluke, but if we can teach dolphins new vocalizations with a specific meaning and they actually use them, then we could finally understand each other enough to start gathering the data needed for real communication with a non-human species, which would be an incredible achievement (and might finally force people to accept the fact that humans really arent all that different from other animals).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by calzone on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:34PM
haven't people been doing this with domesticated dogs, birds, and cats for a while?
Time to leave Soylent News [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:44PM
Exactly. We have a dog and communicate with her perfectly well the whole time. I can read her emotions and needs, tell what she's about to do and what she wants to do. She can tell when we're happy or angry with her. She knows certain things are banned and shouldn't be done (like taking food from the table). She has learned to look to us for permission to do particular things (e.g. not leaving the car until told) and she's completely clear on the meaning of "no/don't do it/stay put" vs "yes/take it/off you go" and will generalise these to new situations. She makes those inferences from tone of voice, body language, and in some cases the word itself. She has a long way to go before matching this dog [plosone.org] however.
(Score: 1) by dast on Wednesday April 02 2014, @11:03PM
For real! Any long-time dog owner knows this.
My dog understands dozens of words, reads our emotions and intentions, looks to me for permission to do things, and even comes to me when he needs help with something. He has even picked up the meaning of words not directed to him. He listens to my wife and I talking between ourselves and shows obvious understanding, even when we are trying to obfuscate what we are saying.
When he was young, when the wife and I were talking about whether he needed to be fed, we would spell certain words verbally out like food (eff oh oh dee), and he wouldn't react. Now when we do that, he knows we are talking about feeding him and he will run into the kitchen, pick up his food bowl, drop it at my feet, and stare at me intensely.
He can even tell when we are trying to trick him, asking him of he wants treat with the intent to lure him into arms reach to pick him up and give him a bath. Somehow, even though we try to be careful about letting him know what we are going to do, he can tell when we are being fake. He'll just run away and hide in his cage as though he could read our minds.
It is eerie...
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Thursday April 03 2014, @02:17AM
That's pretty impressive. Ours isn't that smart, but she definitely shows traits along those lines. I think she picks up small details of our habits. Usually when we leave the house she comes with us (she even comes to work with us) but sometimes she stays at home. She's somehow figured out when we're not taking her with us and she hangs back and does her best to look sad.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by moondoctor on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:27PM
the communication happens, but you don't hear a translation in your ear. i ride horses and sometimes i do hear a translation in my head, things like the horse going "whoah dude! what the fuck is that!!" and "this is getting fun, let's go faster - you down?"
an animal translator would be pretty cool. sounds like productive baby steps in the right direction.
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:37PM
But such a translator is fictional since it'll only be able to output what you tell it to. It'll essentially just be a state machine that gathers a bunch of behavioral parameters, classifies them, then selects an pre-determined output. Likely you will always be better at pattern recognition than any such device. The only reason it's being suggested for dolphins is because people can't hear or mimic their calls.
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Thursday April 03 2014, @07:55AM
google translate will testify to the complexity of machine translation.
that shit is no joke... they've been at it for decades and it is still rudimentary for documented languages. for it to ever work properly it gets into AI territory if you ask me.
"It'll essentially just be a state machine that gathers a bunch of behavioral parameters, classifies them, then selects an pre-determined output"
hope not! that would be useless, as you say.
i think of this as getting a start on a "front end".
the "back end" - translating communication by non verbal means like body language, chemicals, ultrasonic, subsonic, etc., will take a lot of time and work. may even prove impossible in the end. doesn't mean it's not worth trying.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:27AM
Finally, men and women will be able to communicate with each other.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:05PM
Cats have certainly be giving orders to their domesticated humans for a while.
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