Aquatic Culture - Dolphins Communication

What have we learned?
In captive settings, giving the dolphins control over the choice of reinforcement and social interaction with nonhuman subjects has been paramount in the investigation of interspecies communication. Success has often been determined by the selection of the appropriate sensory modality within which to communicate and work. Participatory research, in combination with observations of a species natural communication system, may be a fresh method of investigation available to us.

We can see parallels from primate researchers over the years who have focused on training their nonhuman subjects with artificially derived codes. This mutual system of approach, or two way communication methodology, has often been chosen because of the difficulty of comparing and deciphering the complexities of nonhuman natural systems.

Communicating with our nearest relatives.
In the history of work with captive primates there is a continuum of methodologies researchers have used, from very objective and strict, to more interactive, involving bonding with the animals under study. One of the first studies, by David Premack, was a chimpanzee named Sarah who was acquired from the wild. She was trained with the use of a board, testing her ability to discriminate "same and different" objects. Premack used an interrogative concept and remained separate and "objective" during his work with Sarah. His work could be considered on the far end of the continuum.

Duane and Sue-Savage Rumbaugh brought an interactive approach to their work with two other chimpanzees, Sherman and Austin. The researchers invested time developing rapport with Sherman and Austin, and also tried to develop experiments that included referents or objects that were important to chimpanzees themselves. Allowing Sherman and Austin to work as a team, possibly mimicking the way communication systems evolved under natural conditions, was also very successful. In later years they started working with Kanzi, a pygmy chimpanzee, the most closely related primate to humans. Using a portable keyboard and a semi-natural environment, Kanzi is skilled at understanding complex symbolic associations.

Another innovated approach to interspecies communication has been the work with chimpanzee Washoe. The key to this work was trying sign language, which Alex and Beatrice Gardner, and then Roger and Debbie Fouts, believed was close to the chimpanzees' natural gestural abilities. Washoe could express herself with gestures and this proved the key to the interspecific communication between chimpanzees and humans. Roger Fouts also reasoned that the chimpanzees would be much more interested in working with humans if they liked them and found them interesting. This would provide the social motivation for expressing themselves, to communicate with someone they liked, about something they desired or wanted to express. His study would later document the spread of sign language from chimp to chimp, without human intervention, as an example of cultural transmission within the chimp society itself.