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Sorry, I don't have a link for this:
Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme
Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Monday, 3 October 2005
Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and
vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-
pitched, short version of the Batman theme song.
The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that
nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and
reproduce them vocally.
"Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but
we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for
language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely
human," says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies.
"Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species."
The studies will be presented at the joint meeting of the Acoustical
Society of America and NOISE-CON 2005, which runs from 17 to 21
October in Minneapolis.
Learning to sing
Harley, who is associate professor of social sciences at the New
College of Florida in Sarasota, says that both studies tested
dolphins at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida.
The researchers first had an adult male bottlenose dolphin position
itself in front of an underwater sound projector, called a
hydrophone, that produced six different 14 kiloherz, 4 second rhythms.
The dolphin was rewarded for performing a certain behaviour to each
rhythm. For example, when rhythm 1 played, it waved its pectoral fin
and when rhythm 2 played, it tossed a ball.
The various rhythms were played at different frequencies and tempos
to ensure the dolphin was recognising rhythms instead of just
frequencies or sound durations.
Another adult male was trained to produce similar rhythms using a
pneumatic switch, essentially a small, air-filled ball connected to a
computer that then generated sounds whenever the dolphin pressed the
switch.
"The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a
specific object," says Harley.
"For example, when we presented him with a Batman doll, he received a
fish for producing a specific rhythm, in this case, a short sound and
then a long one."
"If you recall the original Batman TV series musical intro you'll
probably remember the way they sang 'Bat-maaaaaaaan'," she adds.
The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the
researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched
its 'singing' to the rhythms.
By the end of the studies, the scientists could show an object, such
as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation
combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both
vocally and using the switch.
Batmaaaaaaan
Gordon Bauer, associate professor of psychology at the New College of
Florida who did not work on the studies, says, "This is the first
report, to my knowledge, of a nonhuman mammal's ability to
discriminate rhythmic patterns."
But Bauer doubts that dolphins realise they are producing what people
consider 'music'.
"I think music is a human construct," he says. "I doubt that it has
pertinence to animals, although the elements of music, such as pitch,
time, timbre, rhythm, etc, may be incorporated into animal
communication."
Harley agrees, and hopes the everyday vocalisations of dolphins will
be analysed in terms of their rhythmic content.
In the near future, she and her team are planning to test the
dolphins on their ability to recognise recordings of their own
rhythms by having them associate their own sound creations with
identifying objects similar to the Batman doll.
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