2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Preliminary study of teaching artificial language to beluga whale
| Project/Area Number |
25330177
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Cognitive science
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| Research Institution | Tokai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
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| Keywords | シロイルカ / 命名 / 名詞 / クロスモーダル / 模倣 / 動詞 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
We first tested the spontaneous establishment of bidirectional relationships between visual and auditory symbols in a particular beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), nicknamed Nack, and found that cross-modal stimulus equivalence between vision and auditory sense was established.
Imitation is one of essential factors for language comprehension. Accordingly, nine arbitrary vocal sounds produced by the experimenter were presented to Nack, who was required to imitate them. Nack could correctly imitate the novel sounds.We tried to examine the naming of verbs using auditory symbols. That is, Nack was trained to label an action (behavior), "take an object", using a visual symbol to examine whether the subject knows the relation between the action and the visual symbol. Correct responses in this experiment have been observed and the percentage of correct responses is gradually rising but is still unpredictable. This study is not yet completed.
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| Free Research Field |
認知科学，動物行動学，鯨類学
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