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Communication
Psychology 3906
Introduction
• Animals spend a lot of time communicating
– Defense
– Mating
– Food sources
• To say communication has occurred we need a
sender and a receiver
• As usual, we can look at evolutionary change, or
adaptive value (or both of course)
• We can also look at mechanism
You can dance if you want
to….
• Dance language of the
honeybees
• Function is to
communicate location
of food sources to hive
members
• Hive members then can
interpret the dance
• They then go out in the
right direction and
distance (or just right
direction, depends) and
find the food
The Round Dance
• Used only if food source is < 50 m away
• Number of circuits in a given time tell how far away
food source is
• No direction info is given with the round dance
The Waggle Dance
• If food source is > 50 m away
• Redundant sources of distance info
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Number of circuits
Number of waggles
Number of sound bursts
All proportional to distance
• Angle of straight line portion of dance gives
compass direction!
– Up is where the sun is in the sky
• If you don’t think this
is cool…..
• If they are forced to
dance in the open
air, they will actually
use the sun rather
than ‘up means sun’
Reconstructing the evolution of
the honeybee dance
• Lindauer’s work
• All honeybees
dance
• All other Apids
dance, but Apis
Florea uses a sort of
open air ‘dance
floor’
And the story continues…
• Some Trigona species
just get exited and hum
a lot
– Giving out food in the
process actually
• Other Trigona species
leave a scent mark as
well
• Melipona give out
pulses of sound
– Sort of leads ‘em out
Adaptive Value
• The Hive works together anyway, so its best to get to
food quickly, by getting others involved
– The hive works together, but for very specific reasons, and it
is not altruism, more on that when we get there
• Don’t have to waste time leading others out, risk
predation etc
• Costs?
– Other animals could interpret the signal
– Very unlikely in the bee example
Sometimes other animals get the
signal…..
• Tungura Frogs
• Females like the ‘whine
chuck’ call
»
Everybody whine chuck tonight….
• (Drives the babes wild)
• But, umm, bats like it too,
and bats eat frogs!
• When they are alone, males
only whine, when they are
with other males, they ‘whine
chuck’
Language
• Look at human language to see what
the characteristics are
• Limited vs. Unbounded signal set
• Reference and situational freedom
• Intention
Language and the non
humans
• Don’t be impressed by
shiny objects
• This may lead to a
planet where apes
evolved from men…
• Anthropologists and
missionaries
• How can we tell if they
are really using
language?
What can we learn
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Can animals learn human lingo
Stupid question…
Better Q is, what aspects
Can they learn productively?
Are apes like little kids?
Is language learning special?
Where did human language come from?
Nim Chimpsky
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Serioulsy, that was his name..
Looks great
Two sign ‘utterances’
Basically just imitating
Damn…
Lana was a bit different, but not much
Kanzi may be a btter example
Conclusions
• Animals communicate alll the time
– Olfactory
– Calls
– Various other signals
• Others can learn to pick up on the
signals
• Nothing clearly like language though!
– Humans win humans win!!!