[lit-ideas] CymaGlyphs, holographic bubbles, & dolphin-speak...

  • From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 18:57:35 -0600

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081231005531.htm

Songs From The Sea: Deciphering Dolphin Language With Picture Words *
*

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2008) — In an important breakthrough in deciphering
dolphin language, researchers in Great Britain and the United States have
imaged the first high definition imprints that dolphin sounds make in water.

The key to this technique is the CymaScope, a new instrument that reveals
detailed structures within sounds, allowing their architecture to be studied
pictorially. Using high definition audio recordings of dolphins, the
research team, headed by English acoustics engineer, John Stuart Reid, and
Florida-based dolphin researcher, Jack Kassewitz, has been able to image,
for the first time, the imprint that a dolphin sound makes in water. The
resulting "CymaGlyphs," as they have been named, are reproducible patterns
that are expected to form the basis of a lexicon of dolphin language, each
pattern representing a dolphin 'picture word.'

Certain sounds made by dolphins have long been suspected to represent
language but the complexity of the sounds has made their analysis difficult.
Previous techniques, using the spectrograph, display cetacean (dolphins,
whales and porpoises) sounds only as graphs of frequency and amplitude. The
CymaScope captures actual sound vibrations imprinted in the dolphin's
natural environment-water, revealing the intricate visual details of dolphin
sounds for the first time.

Within the field of cetacean research, theory states that dolphins have
evolved the ability to translate dimensional information from their
echolocation sonic beam. The CymaScope has the ability to visualize
dimensional structure within sound. CymaGlyph patterns may resemble what the
creatures perceive from their own returning sound beams and from the sound
beams of other dolphins.

Reid said that the technique has similarities to deciphering Egyptian
hieroglyphs. "Jean-Francois Champollion and Thomas Young used the Rosetta
Stone to discover key elements of the primer that allowed the Egyptian
language to be deciphered. The CymaGlyphs produced on the CymaScope can be
likened to the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone. Now that dolphin chirps,
click-trains and whistles can be converted into CymaGlyphs, we have an
important tool for deciphering their meaning."

Kassewitz, of the Florida-based dolphin communication research project
SpeakDolphin.com said, "There is strong evidence that dolphins are able to
'see' with sound, much like humans use ultrasound to see an unborn child in
the mother's womb. The CymaScope provides our first glimpse into what the
dolphins might be 'seeing' with their sounds."

The team has recognized that sound does not travel in waves, as is popularly
believed, but in expanding holographic bubbles and beams. The holographic
aspect stems from the physics theory that even a single molecule of air or
water carries all the information that describes the qualities and intensity
of a given sound. At frequencies audible to humans (20 Hertz to 20,000
Hertz) the sound-bubble form dominates; above 20,000 Hertz the shape of
sound becomes increasingly beam shaped, similar to a lighthouse beam in
appearance.

Reid explained their novel sound imaging technique: "Whenever sound bubbles
or beams interact with a membrane, the sound vibrations imprint onto its
surface and form a CymaGlyph, a repeatable pattern of energy. The CymaScope
employs the surface tension of water as a membrane because water reacts
quickly and is able to reveal intricate architectures within the sound form.
These fine details can be captured on camera."

Kassewitz has planned a series of experiments to record the sounds of
dolphins targeting a range of objects. Speaking from Key Largo, Florida, he
said, "Dolphins are able to emit complex sounds far above the human range of
hearing. Recent advances in high frequency recording techniques have made it
possible for us to capture more detail in dolphin sounds than ever before.
By recording dolphins as they echolocate on various objects, and also as
they communicate with other dolphins about those objects, we will build a
library of dolphin sounds, verifying that the same sound is always repeated
for the same object. The CymaScope will be used to image the sounds so that
each CymaGlyph will represent a dolphin 'picture word'. Our ultimate aim is
to speak to dolphins with a basic vocabulary of dolphin sounds and to
understand their responses. This is uncharted territory but it looks very
promising."

Dr. Horace Dobbs, a leading authority on dolphin-assisted therapy, has
joined the team as consultant. "I have long held the belief that the dolphin
brain, comparable in size with our own, has specialized in processing
auditory data in much the same way that the human brain has specialized in
processing visual data. Nature tends not to evolve brain mass without a
need, so we must ask ourselves what dolphins do with all that brain
capacity. The answer appears to lie in the development of brain systems that
require huge auditory processing power. There is growing evidence that
dolphins can take a sonic 'snap shot' of an object and send it to other
dolphins, using sound as the transmission medium. We
an therefore hypothesize that the dolphin's primary method of communication
is picture based. Thus, the picture-based imaging method, employed by Reid
and Kassewitz, seems entirely plausible."

The CymaGlyphs of dolphin sounds fall into three broad categories, signature
whistles, chirps and click trains. There is general agreement among cetacean
biologists that signature whistles represent the means by which individual
dolphins identify themselves while click trains are involved in
echolocation. Chirps are thought to represent components of language. Reid
explained the visual form of the various dolphin sounds, "The CymaGlyphs of
signature whistles comprise regular concentric bands of energy that resemble
aircraft radar screens while chirps are often flower-like in structure,
resembling the CymaGlyphs of human vocalizations. Click trains have the most
complex structures of all, featuring a combination of tightly packed
concentric bands on the periphery with unique central features."

Regarding the possibility of speaking dolphin, Kassewitz said, "I believe
that people around the world would love the opportunity to speak with a
dolphin. And I feel certain that dolphins would love the chance to speak
with us - if for no other reason than self-preservation. During my times in
the water with dolphins, there have been several occasions when they seemed
to be very determined to communicate with me. We are getting closer to
making that possible."
------------------------------
*Adapted from materials provided by Sonic Age Ltd<http://www.cymascope.com/>,
via AlphaGalileo <http://www.alphagalileo.org/>*.


Julie Krueger

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