Animal Language
Saturday 17 November, 2012
2:30 - 4:30pm, $0
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
247 East 82 Street, Young Auditorium
The animal kingdom has evolved multiple adaptive strategies for the efficient transmission of information, one way of defining language. In this roundtable, led by experts in fields ranging from the communication in dolphins, monkeys, and whales to speech recognition technology, we will explore the phonics and sonics of animal communication. Sonic waves, undersea and above ground, received by structures as diverse as skin, bone, or stomach, provide tools for the generation of the languages comprehended by humans, from computer speech to the expressiveness of Beethoven. Come hear how animals talk to each other, and explore with us how these vocal and auditory qualities, connected to interpretive centers that govern response and behavior, become the ways we "speak to" each other.
Diana Reiss moderates, with Chris Clark, Ray Dougherty, James Fuller, and James Higham
Participants:
Dr. Christopher W. Clark is the Imogene P. Johnson Director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Senior Scientist in the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Cornell University. Dr. Clark has a long history of successfully working at the interface between science, applied engineering, industry, regulations and NGOs in order to quantify and mitigate potential impacts of human activities on marine mammals. Dr. Clark's current research areas include acoustic monitoring of large whale distributions, behaviors, and movements relative to environmental factors and man-made activities using a variety of passive acoustic detection, classification, localization and tracking technologies. He is also engaged in collaborative research efforts integrating physical oceanographic and biological productivity measures, aerial surveys, genetic and photo-ID data, and acoustic detections. He lead's the development and application of distributed autonomous listening systems and near-real-time automatic acoustic detection systems to quantify the spatio-temporal occurrence of the endangered whales. Dr. Clark and his research staff have developed a suite of analytical procedures and metrics that quantify the acoustic spatio-temporal variability of noise in ocean ecosystems. He has evolved through this process is a new paradigm for evaluating and measuring the magnitude of risks to individual animals and populations as a result of the loss of acoustic habitat.
Ray C. Dougherty, PhD is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at New York University. Prof. Dougherty completed the MIT PhD program in Electrical Engineering studying the mathematical communication theories of Shannon, Turing, and von Neumann. He transferred to the Linguistics Department finishing a PhD under Noam Chomsky on coordinate structures and recursion in language (1969). 'Digital Signal Processing' (1982) used coding theories to design micro-circuitry for speech recognition and synthesis. 'Natural Language Computing' (1994) offered a Chomsky grammar in Lisp and Prolog. Working with Konrad Lorenz (1976, 80) led to an interest in formalizing animal sensori-motor capacities. Recent work with Stephen Wolfram on Cellular Automata (see, 'A New Kind of Science') forms the basis for a rather complete 3D computational graphics model of the operation and evolution of the modern human inner ear, and provides tools to compare the cochlea of lizards (disk), birds (cylinder), and mammals (triple concentric helical spiral). Since the cochlea-brain connection is an analog-digital converter, and sound complexities have clear Fourier/Poincare representations in mathematics, one can offer precise descriptions of how human sound processing capacities evolved over hundreds of millions of years, and account for anomalies like the mammalian platypus whose inner ear resembles that of the bird kingdom. Studying the computational universe of conceivable sound complexities and geometrically possible inner ears, one can show persuasively that Gould's 'saltations' occurred at least twice in the evolution of the modern human ear from ancient creatures, one converting a cylinder (bird) cochlea to a helix (mammal), and also in the appearance of three parallel rows of hairs in the mammal cochlea. Most linguists focus on the evolution of the vocal tract, our group focusses mainly on the cochlea. The mouth serves dozens of different functions, the cochlea since its ancient birth, only detects vibrations and converts them to neural pulses. The computations required to analyze the cochlea parallel closely those required to design a sampling music synthesizer, and many students have worked on projects involving sampling synthesizers.
James L. Fuller is a research fellow at Columbia University, where he recently completed his Ph.D. His doctoral research focused on the evolution and expansion of vocal signal repertoires, focusing primarily on the communication system of blue monkeys (Cercopithecusmitis). James began working with wild primates in Kenya in 1995, and has since participated in behavioral and conservation-directed research in Uganda, DR Congo, Thailand, and Cambodia. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer on the evolution and usage of communication systems in birds and mammals as well as the sensory systems of vertebrates.
James Higham is an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at New York University. His research interests lie in sexual selection and communication, and he explores primate signaling behavior from genetic, neuroendocrine, behavioral, and morphological perspectives. Dr. Higham has many on-going projects, ranging from fieldwork on communication systems in several species of macaques, guenons and baboons, to research on game theoretic signaling models and the computational modeling of primate perception. His several dozen publications include Guest Edited special issues of the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology on the topic of multimodal communication, American Journal of Primatology on the topic of primate signals, and International Journal of Primatology on the topic of primate coloration. His work has been covered by numerous newspapers, journals and blogs, ranging from the BBC and MSNBC to the Times of London and the New York Times.
Diana Reiss, PhD, is a cognitive psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College and the Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience sub-program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Dr. Reiss directs a dolphin cognitive research program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and is a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in DC where she investigates elephant cognition. She was director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the Osborn Laboratories of Marine Sciences at the New York Aquarium and co-chair of the Animal Enrichment Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Dr. Reiss served as a science advisor of the Animal Welfare Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Dr. Reiss's research focuses on cetacean cognition, communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. She pioneered the use of underwater keyboards with dolphins to investigate their cognitive and communicative abilities and provide them with more degrees of choice and control. Dr. Reiss and her colleagues demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins and an Asian elephants possess the rare ability for mirror self-recognition previously thought to be restricted to humans and great apes. Her efforts also involve the rescue and rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals including the successful rescue of the renowned Humphrey, the humpback whale in the San Francisco Bay waters. Her advocacy work in conservation and animal welfare includes the protection of dolphins in the tuna-fishing industry and efforts to bring an end to the killing of dolphins in the drive hunts in Japan. Her recent book The Dolphin in the Mirror was released in the fall 2011.
Diana Reiss moderates, with Chris Clark, Ray Dougherty, James Fuller, and James Higham
Participants:
Dr. Christopher W. Clark is the Imogene P. Johnson Director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Senior Scientist in the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Cornell University. Dr. Clark has a long history of successfully working at the interface between science, applied engineering, industry, regulations and NGOs in order to quantify and mitigate potential impacts of human activities on marine mammals. Dr. Clark's current research areas include acoustic monitoring of large whale distributions, behaviors, and movements relative to environmental factors and man-made activities using a variety of passive acoustic detection, classification, localization and tracking technologies. He is also engaged in collaborative research efforts integrating physical oceanographic and biological productivity measures, aerial surveys, genetic and photo-ID data, and acoustic detections. He lead's the development and application of distributed autonomous listening systems and near-real-time automatic acoustic detection systems to quantify the spatio-temporal occurrence of the endangered whales. Dr. Clark and his research staff have developed a suite of analytical procedures and metrics that quantify the acoustic spatio-temporal variability of noise in ocean ecosystems. He has evolved through this process is a new paradigm for evaluating and measuring the magnitude of risks to individual animals and populations as a result of the loss of acoustic habitat.
Ray C. Dougherty, PhD is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at New York University. Prof. Dougherty completed the MIT PhD program in Electrical Engineering studying the mathematical communication theories of Shannon, Turing, and von Neumann. He transferred to the Linguistics Department finishing a PhD under Noam Chomsky on coordinate structures and recursion in language (1969). 'Digital Signal Processing' (1982) used coding theories to design micro-circuitry for speech recognition and synthesis. 'Natural Language Computing' (1994) offered a Chomsky grammar in Lisp and Prolog. Working with Konrad Lorenz (1976, 80) led to an interest in formalizing animal sensori-motor capacities. Recent work with Stephen Wolfram on Cellular Automata (see, 'A New Kind of Science') forms the basis for a rather complete 3D computational graphics model of the operation and evolution of the modern human inner ear, and provides tools to compare the cochlea of lizards (disk), birds (cylinder), and mammals (triple concentric helical spiral). Since the cochlea-brain connection is an analog-digital converter, and sound complexities have clear Fourier/Poincare representations in mathematics, one can offer precise descriptions of how human sound processing capacities evolved over hundreds of millions of years, and account for anomalies like the mammalian platypus whose inner ear resembles that of the bird kingdom. Studying the computational universe of conceivable sound complexities and geometrically possible inner ears, one can show persuasively that Gould's 'saltations' occurred at least twice in the evolution of the modern human ear from ancient creatures, one converting a cylinder (bird) cochlea to a helix (mammal), and also in the appearance of three parallel rows of hairs in the mammal cochlea. Most linguists focus on the evolution of the vocal tract, our group focusses mainly on the cochlea. The mouth serves dozens of different functions, the cochlea since its ancient birth, only detects vibrations and converts them to neural pulses. The computations required to analyze the cochlea parallel closely those required to design a sampling music synthesizer, and many students have worked on projects involving sampling synthesizers.
James L. Fuller is a research fellow at Columbia University, where he recently completed his Ph.D. His doctoral research focused on the evolution and expansion of vocal signal repertoires, focusing primarily on the communication system of blue monkeys (Cercopithecusmitis). James began working with wild primates in Kenya in 1995, and has since participated in behavioral and conservation-directed research in Uganda, DR Congo, Thailand, and Cambodia. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer on the evolution and usage of communication systems in birds and mammals as well as the sensory systems of vertebrates.
James Higham is an Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at New York University. His research interests lie in sexual selection and communication, and he explores primate signaling behavior from genetic, neuroendocrine, behavioral, and morphological perspectives. Dr. Higham has many on-going projects, ranging from fieldwork on communication systems in several species of macaques, guenons and baboons, to research on game theoretic signaling models and the computational modeling of primate perception. His several dozen publications include Guest Edited special issues of the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology on the topic of multimodal communication, American Journal of Primatology on the topic of primate signals, and International Journal of Primatology on the topic of primate coloration. His work has been covered by numerous newspapers, journals and blogs, ranging from the BBC and MSNBC to the Times of London and the New York Times.
Diana Reiss, PhD, is a cognitive psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College and the Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience sub-program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Dr. Reiss directs a dolphin cognitive research program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and is a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in DC where she investigates elephant cognition. She was director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the Osborn Laboratories of Marine Sciences at the New York Aquarium and co-chair of the Animal Enrichment Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Dr. Reiss served as a science advisor of the Animal Welfare Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Dr. Reiss's research focuses on cetacean cognition, communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. She pioneered the use of underwater keyboards with dolphins to investigate their cognitive and communicative abilities and provide them with more degrees of choice and control. Dr. Reiss and her colleagues demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins and an Asian elephants possess the rare ability for mirror self-recognition previously thought to be restricted to humans and great apes. Her efforts also involve the rescue and rehabilitation of stranded marine mammals including the successful rescue of the renowned Humphrey, the humpback whale in the San Francisco Bay waters. Her advocacy work in conservation and animal welfare includes the protection of dolphins in the tuna-fishing industry and efforts to bring an end to the killing of dolphins in the drive hunts in Japan. Her recent book The Dolphin in the Mirror was released in the fall 2011.