Researchers say sperm whales have a complex communication system, an example of how new technology is opening up the mysterious world of animal language.
Sperm whales have lengthy exchanges, made up of clicks, which scientists have found is more complex than previously thought.Sperm whales have lengthy exchanges, made up of clicks, which scientists have found is more complex than previously thought.Sperm whales have a lot to say. The animals spend much of their lives in darkness, searching the ocean's depths for giant squid. So sound rules their world, especially in their tight-knit family groups where they can be downright chatty.
Scientists have long debated whether animals have language, with some insisting that humans are the only species capable of its complexity. The question is whether new technologies like artificial intelligence could decode the mysteries of animal communication that humans have so far missed. Their vocal exchanges can last an hour, with different whales clicking and repeating after each other."It's not rude in sperm whale society to talk at the same time and overlap one another," Gero says.
"In using machine learning to detect the clicks, we found that there were so many more clicks than people could manually segment from the data set," says Rus, who worked on the project. The researchers say this shows sperm whales potentially have the tools to make different combinations of codas, something that's considered an ingredient of language. Humans can recombine many meaningless pieces of language - like sounds and syllables - and turn them into something meaningful.Determining what sperm whales mean with different codas or combinations of codas is a much tougher task.
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