Well, now we're going to the Bahamas to meet a remarkable group of dolphins that I've been working with in the wild for the last 28 years.
现在,让我们一起前往巴哈马群岛 去认识我的搭档们,一群了不起的海豚 在过去的28年里,我们在大自然中共勉。
Now I'm interested in dolphins because of their large brains and what they might be doing with all that brainpower in the wild. And we know they use some of that brainpower for just living complicated lives, but what do we really know about dolphin intelligence?
我之所以对海豚该兴趣是因为它们的大脑比较大, 还有它们运用自己的脑力 在野外做的事情。 好吧,我们知道它们会用部分脑力 去应付复杂的生活, 但我们真的知道海豚的智能吗?
Well, we know a few things. We know that their brain-to-body ratio, which is a physical measure of intelligence, is second only to humans. Cognitively, they can understand artificially-created languages. And they pass self-awareness tests in mirrors. And in some parts of the world, they use tools, like sponges to hunt fish. But there's one big question left: do they have a language, and if so, what are they talking about?
嗯,我们知道一些, 我们知道它们的大脑和身体的比例, 这是衡量智力的一种物理指标, 它们的比例仅次于人类。 它们的认知能力使它们能够明白 人为创造出来的语言。 它们通过了测试自我认知能力的镜子测试, 在世界的某些地方,它们利用工具, 比如,用海绵捕鱼。 但是仍有一个疑问: 它们有自己的语言吗?如果有的话, 它们到底在说些什么呢?
So decades ago, not years ago, I set out to find a place in the world where I could observe dolphins underwater to try to crack the code of their communication system. Now in most parts of the world, the water's pretty murky, so it's very hard to observe animals underwater, but I found a community of dolphins that live in these beautiful, clear, shallow sandbanks of the Bahamas which are just east of Florida. And they spend their daytime resting and socializing in the safety of the shallows, but at night, they go off the edge and hunt in deep water.
几十年前,而不是几年前, 我开始寻找地球上的某个地方, 某个我可以在水下观察海豚的地方, 以便尝试着破译它们之间的通讯系统。 世界上很多地方的水都很浑浊, 给在水下观察生物带来不便, 但是我找到了一群海豚生活在 位于巴哈马群岛的一片美丽而且清澈见底的沙洲附近, 就在佛罗里达州以东的位置。 他们白天在浅水域的安全地带 休息嬉戏,但到了晚上, 它们会离开哪儿去深海捕食。
Now, it's not a bad place to be a researcher, either. So we go out for about five months every summer in a 20-meter catamaran, and we live, sleep and work at sea for weeks at a time. My main tool is an underwater video with a hydrophone, which is an underwater microphone, and this is so I can correlate sound and behavior. And most of our work's pretty non-invasive. We try to follow dolphin etiquette while we're in the water, since we're actually observing them physically in the water. Now, Atlantic spotted dolphins are a really nice species to work with for a couple of reasons. They're born without spots, and they get spots with age, and they go through pretty distinct developmental phases, so that's fun to track their behavior. And by about the age of 15, they're fully spotted black and white.
那个地方对于研究员来说也不错。 我们每年夏天都会去那儿待上5个月, 在一艘20米长的双体游艇里,我们生活、睡觉、工作, 那样每次在海上呆上几个星期。 我的主要工具是一台配有水听器的摄像机, 水听器就是水下麦克风, 以便我将声音和行为关联起来。 我们大部分的工作都没有什么入侵性。 我们在水中遵循着海豚的礼节, 因为我们实际上是在水中亲身观察他们。 大西洋花斑海豚真的很适合做我们的研究对象, 原因如下。 它们出生的时候没有斑点,斑点会随年龄增长而显现 他们会经历一段段蛮独特的发育阶段, 所以,跟踪记录它们的行为是件很有意思的事。 到了大概15岁的时候,它们全身会布满黑白斑点,
Now the mother you see here is Mugsy. She's 35 years old in this shot, but dolphins can actually live into their early 50s. And like all the dolphins in our community, we photographed Mugsy and tracked her little spots and nicks in her dorsal fin, and also the unique spot patterns as she matured over time.
你们现在看到的这位海豚妈妈叫玛格茜。 画面里是她35岁时的模样, 但海豚们其实能活到50多岁。 就像我们这群海豚里所有成员一样, 在玛格茜的成长岁月里, 我们拍摄并跟踪记录了她的小点点 和她背鳍上的凹痕, 还有一些很特别的斑纹。
Now, young dolphins learn a lot as they're growing up, and they use their teenage years to practice social skills, and at about the age of nine, the females become sexually mature, so they can get pregnant, and the males mature quite a bit later, at around 15 years of age. And dolphins are very promiscuous, and so we have to determine who the fathers are, so we do paternity tests by collecting fecal material out of the water and extracting DNA. So what that means is, after 28 years, we are tracking three generations, including grandmothers and grandfathers. Now, dolphins are natural acousticians. They make sounds 10 times as high and hear sounds 10 times as high as we do. But they have other communication signals they use. They have good vision, so they use body postures to communicate. They have taste, not smell. And they have touch. And sound can actually be felt in the water, because the acoustic impedance of tissue and water's about the same. So dolphins can buzz and tickle each other at a distance.
年轻海豚在它们的成长过程中要学习很多本领, 它们在青春期要练习社交技巧, 雌性海豚在9岁左右, 进入生理成熟阶段,就会有生育能力, 雄性海豚成熟期会稍微晚一点, 大约在15岁的时候。 海豚的交配是很混杂的, 所以我们必须判断谁是海豚爸爸。 亲子鉴定的方法是:先从水中收集排泄物, 然后从中提取DNA。 也就是说,28年来, 我们追踪了三代海豚, 包括了海豚爷爷和海豚奶奶。 海豚是天生的声学家。 它们发声的音量是人类的10倍, 它们的听觉也是人类的10倍。 但是它们还使用其他的沟通讯号, 它们有良好的视觉,所以它们会用肢体语言进行沟通。 它们有味觉,但是没有嗅觉。 它们也有触觉。 声音其实能够在水中被感觉到, 因为它们的组织的声抗和水的声抗差不多相同, 所以,海豚们可以在一定距离内相互呼叫和挠痒。
Now, we do know some things about how sounds are used with certain behaviors. Now, the signature whistle is a whistle that's specific to an individual dolphin, and it's like a name. (Dolphin whistling noises) And this is the best-studied sound, because it's easy to measure, really, and you'd find this whistle when mothers and calves are reuniting, for example.
我们的确知道一些关于声音是如何 与特定行为一起使用的信息。 这种具有鲜明特征的哨声是 每一只海豚所特有的,就好像是它们的名字。(海豚的哨声) 而且这是研究得最为透彻的声音, 因为它容易测量,真的, 比如说,当海豚母子重逢的时候, 你就能听到这种哨声。
Another well studied sound are echolocation clicks. This is the dolphin's sonar. (Dolphin echolocation noises) And they use these clicks to hunt and feed. But they can also tightly pack these clicks together into buzzes and use them socially. For example, males will stimulate a female during a courtship chase. You know, I've been buzzed in the water. (Laughter) Don't tell anyone. It's a secret. And you can really feel the sound. That was my point with that. (Laughter)
另一种研究得比较透彻的声音是回声定位的滴答声, 这是海豚的声纳。(海豚的回声定位声) 它们用这种滴答声来捕食。 它们还可以把滴答声集中到一起 形成用于交往的呼叫声。 比如,在求爱的过程中, 雄性海豚会向雌性海豚“发波”。 知道吗?我在水中被波到过。 (笑声) 别告诉任何人,这是我们之间的小秘密。 我想说的是,你真的能感觉到那声音。 (笑声)
So dolphins are also political animals, so they have to resolve conflicts. (Dolphin noises) And they use these burst-pulsed sounds as well as their head-to-head behaviors when they're fighting. And these are very unstudied sounds because they're hard to measure.
海豚们也搞政治, 所以它们必须解决纷争。 (海豚声) 在它们争执的时候,它们发出这种爆破声 而且会有头对头的行为, 这些是没有研究过的声音, 因为测量它们的难度很大,
Now this is some video of a typical dolphin fight. (Dolphin noises) So you're going to see two groups, and you're going to see the head-to-head posturing, some open mouths, lots of squawking. There's a bubble. And basically, one of these groups will kind of back off and everything will resolve fine, and it doesn't really escalate into violence too much.
这些是典型的海豚争执的视频, (海豚声) 你们会看到两组海豚, 会看到他们头对头的架势, 有些张着嘴, 有很多唧唧喳喳的声音。 那有个泡泡, 简单说,其中一组会撤退, 问题就这样迎刃而解, 这种情况不会升级为暴力相向的局面。
Now, in the Bahamas, we also have resident bottlenose that interact socially with the spotted dolphins. For example, they babysit each other's calves. The males have dominance displays that they use when they're chasing each other's females. And the two species actually form temporary alliances when they're chasing sharks away. And one of the mechanisms they use to communicate their coordination is synchrony. They synchronize their sounds and their body postures to look bigger and sound stronger. (Dolphins noises) Now, these are bottlenose dolphins, and you'll see them starting to synchronize their behavior and their sounds. (Dolphin noises) You see, they're synchronizing with their partner as well as the other dyad. I wish I was that coordinated.
在巴哈马群岛,我们还发现了宽吻海豚 会和花斑海豚交往。 比如,它们会互相照顾对方的幼仔。 雄海豚追逐对方的女伴时, 会表现出强势的一面。 而当这两种海豚驱赶鲨鱼的时候, 它们会其实会组成暂时的联盟。 它们为协调而运用的沟通机理之一 是同步。 它们同步它们的声音和姿势, 以便造成更大阵势和声势。 (海豚声) 这些是宽吻海豚, 你看,它们开始同步 它们的行为和声音。 (海豚声) 你看,它们正在和它们的伙伴同步 还有进行其他二分体。 但愿我能有那么的协调。
Now, it's important to remember that you're only hearing the human-audible parts of dolphin sounds, and dolphins make ultrasonic sounds, and we use special equipment in the water to collect these sounds. Now, researchers have actually measured whistle complexity using information theory, and whistles rate very high relative to even human languages. But burst-pulsed sounds is a bit of a mystery.
不过,别忘了你只听到了 人类能听到的那部分海豚声, 海豚们还会发出超声波, 我们在水中利用特殊器材 采集这些声音。 研究员们其实已经利用信息原理 测量了口哨声的复杂度, 这些口哨声的复杂度之高甚至能和人类语言相媲美。 不过突发脉冲音有点神秘。
Now, these are three spectragrams. Two are human words, and one is a dolphin vocalizing. So just take a guess in your mind which one is the dolphin. Now, it turns out burst-pulsed sounds actually look a bit like human phonemes.
这儿有三张声谱图。 两张是人类的词汇,一张是海豚的发声。 猜一猜,哪张是海豚的。 突发脉冲音倒看起来 有点像人类的音位。
Now, one way to crack the code is to interpret these signals and figure out what they mean, but it's a difficult job, and we actually don't have a Rosetta Stone yet. But a second way to crack the code is to develop some technology, an interface to do two-way communication, and that's what we've been trying to do in the Bahamas and in real time. Now, scientists have used keyboard interfaces to try to bridge the gap with species including chimpanzees and dolphins. This underwater keyboard in Orlando, Florida, at the Epcot Center, was actually the most sophisticated ever two-way interface designed for humans and dolphins to work together under the water and exchange information. So we wanted to develop an interface like this in the Bahamas, but in a more natural setting. And one of the reasons we thought we could do this is because the dolphins were starting to show us a lot of mutual curiosity. They were spontaneously mimicking our vocalizations and our postures, and they were also inviting us into dolphin games. Now, dolphins are social mammals, so they love to play, and one of their favorite games is to drag seaweed, or sargassum in this case, around. And they're very adept. They like to drag it and drop it from appendage to appendage. Now in this footage, the adult is Caroh. She's 25 years old here, and this is her newborn, Cobalt, and he's just learning how to play this game. (Dolphin noises) She's kind of teasing him and taunting him. He really wants that sargassum. Now, when dolphins solicit humans for this game, they'll often sink vertically in the water, and they'll have a little sargassum on their flipper, and they'll sort of nudge it and drop it sometimes on the bottom and let us go get it, and then we'll have a little seaweed keep away game. But when we don't dive down and get it, they'll bring it to the surface and they'll sort of wave it in front of us on their tail and drop it for us like they do their calves, and then we'll pick it up and have a game.
破译代码的一种方法 是翻译这些讯号,并得出它们的意思, 这项工作很困难,而我们没有罗塞塔石碑。 第二种破译代码的方法 是研发出一些技术, 一个进行双向沟通的界面平台, 这就是我们在巴哈马群岛在尝试的事情。 在现实中。 现在,科学家们利用键盘 来连接两个物种之间的差别 包括大猩猩和海豚。 这个水下的键盘在佛罗里达的奥兰多, 在EPCOT中心, 设计了至今最精致的双向沟通界面平台 为了人类和海豚能在水中一起工作 交换信息。 所以我们想建立这么一个界面 在巴哈马群岛,一个更加自然的环境里。 我们之所以认为我们可以做到,其中一个原因是 海豚开始向我们展示 它们对我们也感到好奇。 它们不由自主的模仿我们的声音 我们的姿势,它们甚至邀请我们 参与它们的游戏。 现在,海豚们是社交类哺乳动物,所以它们热爱玩耍, 它们最喜欢的游戏之一是拖拽海带, 或者是海藻,转圈。 而且它们很熟练。它们喜欢拖拽这些东西 然后丢在身体的某些部位。 在这段录像中的成年海豚叫Caroh。 它这时25岁,这是它的幼崽,Cobalt, 幼崽刚刚学会怎么玩这个游戏。 (海豚声) 它在和孩子嬉戏。 幼崽真的很想要那些海藻。 当海豚们邀请人类加入游戏的时候, 它们会垂直于水中, 这样就会有海藻留在它们的蹼上, 然后它们有时会抖一抖蹼,把海藻丢下, 让我们人类去拿, 接下来我们会玩一个藏海带游戏。 但是,当我们不潜水下去拿水藻的时候, 它们会自己去捡起来带到水面 然后它们的会用它们的尾巴向我们挥舞海藻 丢给我们,就像它们对待幼崽一样, 我们接下来便去捡起来,和它们玩一场游戏。
And so we started thinking, well, wouldn't it be neat to build some technology that would allow the dolphins to request these things in real time, their favorite toys? So the original vision was to have a keyboard hanging from the boat attached to a computer, and the divers and dolphins would activate the keys on the keypad and happily exchange information and request toys from each other. But we quickly found out that dolphins simply were not going to hang around the boat using a keyboard. They've got better things to do in the wild. They might do it in captivity, but in the wild --
我们开始思索一件很棒的事情。 开发一种技术,可以让海豚们在现实生活中 索要这些东西,它们最爱的玩具? 所以,最早的设想是有一个键盘 挂在船上,和电脑连接, 然后潜水员们和海豚们可以用键盘上的键 来互相交换信息 然后向对方索要玩具。 但是我们马上就发现, 海豚们并不会在船边用键盘。 它们在野外有更值得做的事情。 人工饲养的时候,可能会,但是在野外--
So we built a portable keyboard that we could push through the water, and we labeled four objects they like to play with, the scarf, rope, sargassum, and also had a bow ride, which is a fun activity for a dolphin. (Whistle) And that's the scarf whistle, which is also associated with a visual symbol. And these are artificially created whistles. They're outside the dolphin's normal repertoire, but they're easily mimicked by the dolphins. And I spent four years with my colleagues Adam Pack and Fabienne Delfour, working out in the field with this keyboard using it with each other to do requests for toys while the dolphins were watching. And the dolphins could get in on the game. They could point at the visual object, or they could mimic the whistle.
所以我们开发了一个可以在水中工作的移动键盘 然后我们在上面标注了四种它们喜欢的玩具, 围巾,绳索,海藻以及一个“bow ride” 对海豚来说,很好玩。(口哨声) 刚刚那个是围巾口哨声, 和一个视觉的符号联系了起来。 这些是人工的口哨声。 它们是在海豚们的能力范围以外, 但是海豚们很快就学会了。 我和我的同事们Adam Pack, 还有 Fabienne Delfour花了四年, 带着这个键盘工作 我们用它来互相索要玩具 而海豚们会在看。 然后海豚们会加入到游戏中。 它们指向任何一个指标, 或者它们模仿口哨声。
Now this is video of a session. The diver here has a rope toy, and I'm on the keyboard on the left, and I've just played the rope key, and that's the request for the toy from the human. So I've got the rope, I'm diving down, and I'm basically trying to get the dolphin's attention, because they're kind of like little kids. You have to keep their attention. I'm going to drop the rope, see if they come over. Here they come, and then they're going to pick up the rope and drag it around as a toy. Now, I'm at the keyboard on the left, and this is actually the first time that we tried this. I'm going to try to request this toy, the rope toy, from the dolphins using the rope sound. Let's see if they might actually understand what that means. (Whistle) That's the rope whistle. Up come the dolphins, and drop off the rope, yay. Wow.
这是一个游戏的视频。 潜水员有绳索玩具, 我在左边,操作键盘, 然后我按了标注为绳索的键, 代表我们人类想要绳索玩具。 我拿着绳索,潜水了, 我想让海豚们注意到我, 因为它们像小孩。 你必须要让它们关注你, 我把绳索丢下,看看它们会不会来。 它们来了, 它们会把绳索捡起来 然后向它是一个玩具一样拖拽绳索。 我在左边,操作键盘, 这是我们第一次做这样的尝试, 我将要索要绳索玩具, 通过按下代表绳索的键,从海豚那里索要。 我们来看看,它们是不是会领会到这个指令, (口哨声) 刚刚那个是绳索口哨声。 海豚们来了, 然后丢下了绳索,耶。天呐。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
So this is only once. We don't know for sure if they really understand the function of the whistles. Okay, so here's a second toy in the water. This is a scarf toy, and I'm trying to lead the dolphin over to the keyboard to show her the visual and the acoustic signal. Now this dolphin, we call her "the scarf thief," because over the years she's absconded with about 12 scarves. In fact, we think she has a boutique somewhere in the Bahamas. So I'm reaching over. She's got the scarf on her right side. And we try to not touch the animals too much, we really don't want to over-habituate them. And I'm trying to lead her back to the keyboard. And the diver there is going to activate the scarf sound to request the scarf. So I try to give her the scarf. Whoop. Almost lost it. But this is the moment where everything becomes possible. The dolphin's at the keyboard. You've got full attention. And this sometimes went on for hours. And I wanted to share this video with you not to show you any big breakthroughs, because they haven't happened yet, but to show you the level of intention and focus that these dolphins have, and interest in the system.
这只是一次。 我们不确定它们是否真的领会这些口哨声的意思 好的,水里有另一件玩具。 这是一件围巾玩具,我会尝试引一只海豚过来 到键盘这边来,然后给它展示 这个视觉和声音的讯号。 现在我们把这只海豚叫做“围巾小偷”, 因为这些年, 她偷走了12条围巾。 事实上,我们觉得它在巴哈马群岛的某处开了个铺子卖围巾。 我现在在慢慢接近。它拿到了围巾。 我们尽量不碰触它们, 我们不想让它们过于习惯, 我们尝试着引导它们回到键盘前。 潜水员会去按那个代表围巾的键, 来索要围巾。 我把围巾给它, 哎呀,差点掉了。 但是这是一切都将变为可能的一刻。 海豚们在键盘旁。 你得到了它们的全力关注。 有时候,这会持续好几个小时。 我想和你们分享这个视频 不是想展示这是多大的一个突破, 因为还没有发生, 而是展示给你们看其中的意图和中心 那就是,海豚们对这个系统感兴趣。
And because of this, we really decided we needed some more sophisticated technology. So we joined forces with Georgia Tech, with Thad Starner's wearable computing group, to build us an underwater wearable computer that we're calling CHAT. [CHAT: Cetacean Hearing And Telemetry] Now, instead of pushing a keyboard through the water, the diver's wearing the complete system, and it's acoustic only, so basically the diver activates the sounds on a keypad on the forearm, the sounds go out through an underwater speaker, if a dolphin mimics the whistle or a human plays the whistle, the sounds come in and are localized by two hydrophones. The computer can localize who requested the toy if there's a word match. And the real power of the system is in the real-time sound recognition, so we can respond to the dolphins quickly and accurately.
因为这个,我们决定我们需要 一些更加精细的技术。 所以我们和乔治亚技术Gerogia Tech合作了, 采用Thad Starner的可佩带电脑, 来开发可以在水中佩带的电脑 我们称之为 CHAT (鲸目动物听觉遥测技术) 现在不再是把键盘推入水中, 而是潜水员佩带电脑系统潜水,只有声音, 简单来说,潜水员放一个声音, 在手臂上, 声音通过水下的音响发出, 如果海豚模仿这个口哨声 或者人类播放这个口哨声,声音会出来, 通过两个水中听音器。 电脑可以定位是谁索要玩具 如果有一个匹配。 这个系统的真正作用在是,实时的声音识别 所以我们可以回复海豚 很迅速的,很准确的。
And we're at prototype stage, but this is how we hope it will play out. So Diver A and Diver B both have a wearable computer and the dolphin hears the whistle as a whistle, the diver hears the whistle as a whistle in the water, but also as a word through bone conduction. So Diver A plays the scarf whistle or Diver B plays the sargassum whistle to request a toy from whoever has it. What we hope will happen is that the dolphin mimics the whistle, and if Diver A has the sargassum, if that's the sound that was played and requested, then the diver will give the sargassum to the requesting dolphin and they'll swim away happily into the sunset playing sargassum for forever.
我们现在还在原型建立的阶段,我们希望成果也是这样。 潜水员A和B都佩带了电脑 海豚听到的口哨声就是口哨声, 潜水员在水中听到的口哨声,也就是一模一样的口哨声 也还是一个词语,通过骨骼传导。 潜水员A播放了围巾口哨声 潜水员B播放了海藻口哨声 从拥有人手中索要。 我们希望看到的是海豚模仿口哨声 如果潜水员A有海藻, 如果播放的是海藻声, 然后潜水员会把海藻给索要的海豚 然后它们会开开心心的在夕阳中渐行渐远 永远的把玩海藻。
Now, how far can this kind of communication go? Well, CHAT is designed specifically to empower the dolphins to request things from us. It's designed to really be two-way. Now, will they learn to mimic the whistles functionally? We hope so and we think so. But as we decode their natural sounds, we're also planning to put those back into the computerized system. For example, right now we can put their own signature whistles in the computer and request to interact with a specific dolphin. Likewise, we can create our own whistles, our own whistle names, and let the dolphins request specific divers to interact with.
这样的沟通方式还能做到什么呢? CHAT是用来帮助海豚们 向我们索要东西的。 它是双向的。 它们会不会很好的模仿口哨声? 我们希望可以,我们也相信它们可以。 但是当我们破译了它们自然的声音时, 我们也计划着把这些声音植入到我们的系统中 例如,现在我们可以把它们的标志性口哨声 植入到电脑中,然后邀请特定的一只海豚进行互动。 相同的,我们可以创造我们自己的口哨声, 我们自己的口哨声名,然后让海豚们 邀请特定的潜水员和它们互动。
Now it may be that all our mobile technology will actually be the same technology that helps us communicate with another species down the road. In the case of a dolphin, you know, it's a species that, well, they're probably close to our intelligence in many ways and we might not be able to admit that right now, but they live in quite a different environment, and you still have to bridge the gap with the sensory systems.
我们的移动技术可能 会是同一种技术,帮助我们 和另外一种物种沟通。 以海豚为例,它们这种物种, 它们的智力在很多方面和我们都相向, 虽然我们可能不承认, 但是它们生活在不同的环境中, 我们必须通过一些感知系统来错短距离。
I mean, imagine what it would be like to really understand the mind of another intelligent species on the planet.
我的意思是,想象一下 会是怎么一副景象 如果我们能够了解另一个物种,并和它们沟通。
Thank you.
谢谢你们。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)