Communication

1. Communication Psychology 3906

2. Introduction • Animals spend a lot of time communicating • Defense • Mating • Food sources • To say communication has occurred we need a sender and a receiver • As usual, we can look at evolutionary change, or adaptive value (or both of course) • We can also look at mechanism

3. You can dance if you want to…. • Dance language of the honeybees • Function is to communicate location of food sources to hive members • Hive members then can interpret the dance • They then go out in the right direction and distance (or just right direction, depends) and find the food

4. The Round Dance • Used only if food source is < 50 m away • Number of circuits in a given time tell how far away food source is • No direction info is given with the round dance

5. The Waggle Dance • If food source is > 50 m away • Redundant sources of distance info • Number of circuits • Number of waggles • Number of sound bursts • All proportional to distance • Angle of straight line portion of dance gives compass direction! • Up is where the sun is in the sky

6. If you don’t think this is cool….. • If they are forced to dance in the open air, they will actually use the sun rather than ‘up means sun’

7. Reconstructing the evolution of the honeybee dance • Lindauer’s work • All honeybees dance • All other Apids dance, but Apis Florea uses a sort of open air ‘dance floor’

8. And the story continues… • Some Trigona species just get exited and hum a lot • Giving out food in the process actually • Other Trigona species leave a scent mark as well • Melipona give out pulses of sound • Sort of leads ‘em out

9. Adaptive Value • The Hive works together anyway, so its best to get to food quickly, by getting others involved • The hive works together, but for very specific reasons, and it is not altruism, more on that when we get there • Don’t have to waste time leading others out, risk predation etc • Costs? • Other animals could interpret the signal • Very unlikely in the bee example

10. Sometimes other animals get the signal….. • Tungura Frogs • Females like the ‘whine chuck’ call • Everybody whine chuck tonight…. • (Drives the babes wild) • But, umm, bats like it too, and bats eat frogs! • When they are alone, males only whine, when they are with other males, they ‘whine chuck’

11. Language • Look at human language to see what the characteristics are • Limited vs. Unbounded signal set • Reference and situational freedom • Intention

12. Language and the non humans • Don’t be impressed by shiny objects • This may lead to a planet where apes evolved from men… • Anthropologists and missionaries • How can we tell if they are really using language?

13. What can we learn • Can animals learn human lingo • Stupid question… • Better Q is, what aspects • Can they learn productively? • Are apes like little kids? • Is language learning special? • Where did human language come from?

14. Nim Chimpsky • Serioulsy, that was his name.. • Looks great • Two sign ‘utterances’ • Basically just imitating • Damn… • Lana was a bit different, but not much • Kanzi may be a btter example

15. Conclusions • Animals communicate alll the time • Olfactory • Calls • Various other signals • Others can learn to pick up on the signals • Nothing clearly like language though! • Humans win humans win!!!