Press Release

Songs From The Sea:
Deciphering Dolphin Language with Picture Words

Key words: Dolphin, Acoustics, Language, CymaScope 

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 can 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.”

Contacts:

Jack Kassewitz  001-305-235-0288  HYPERLINK "http://www.speakdolphin.com" \o "http://www.speakdolphin.com" www.speakdolphin.com

John Reid:  011-44-17687-79006  HYPERLINK "http://www.cymascope.com" \o "http://www.cymascope.com" www.cymascope.com

Literary & dramatic rights: Ken Atchity  001-323-932-0407

Thoughts

Vision without action is daydream.

Action without vision is nightmare.

Japanese proverb

Dolphin Echolocation

Hyperboloid Coincident Acoustic Model by Jack Kassewitz and Mark Weber

The bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, has had its dual phonation device(s) described extensively in the literature: it offers both binaural receiving and biphonic (or bivocal) transmitting capabilities. The following model, Photograph 2, is based upon my recording and analyzing their sounds and a bit of a hunch what takes place when you have an outgoing multiple source signal that has coincident wave behavior increasing amplitude arithmetically. A research paper will be forthcoming regarding this new model for echolocation.

Volunteer with a marine mammal stranding network!

Participate in environmental projects and activities to help restore healthy ecosystems on land and in the ocean such as Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Clean up Day.

Participate in our Clean Ocean Dolphin Poster Project.

Always be mindful of your trash -- never litter!

Volunteer at a marine mammal rescue organization! There are many such rescue organizations around the world and most of them depend on volunteers to help care for injured and stranded marine mammals. When a stranding happens, countless volunteers are needed around the clock to help the animal survive. People are needed to do everything from the mundane to the intense such as making phone calls and keeping the rescue site clean, to preparing food and medicine for the animal, as well as supporting the injured animal in the water. Many rescue organizations offer free training classes so that volunteers are well prepared when a stranding occurs and the team needs to spring into action. Also, by volunteering with a rescue organization, you will eventually have hands-on personal interaction with amazing marine mammals -- often these are animals that you would normally never have the opportunity to meet. And you will be making a direct contribution to that animal's well being. We have been blessed to know rough-tooth dolphins, pilot whales, and pygmy sperm whales in this way. And even if these animals do not survive, you have the peace of mind that they were able to die in loving arms.

Donate to our dolphin communication research so that dolphins and whales will have a scientifically-undeniable voice in the world!

Our Goals

We are working towards this goal by using cutting-edge technology to:

• Develop new systems to explore cetacean cognition and acoustic abilities, and create a language interface.
• Record cetacean sounds both above and below water in the broadest spectrum ever achieved.
• Analyze these cetacean sounds for harmonic patterns and communication value.
• Use these analyzed sounds to play specific musical phrases and tones underwater -- back to the cetaceans -- while recording their contemporaneous responses.
• Publish and share this research in scientific journals.
• Assist in establishing new standards in the scientific grade recording and processing of marine mammal acoustics.
• Play cooperative games with cetaceans in order to expand our understanding of interspecies alliances and non-verbal communication.
• Produce and distribute music created in partnership with these cetacean recordings for integration into human consciousness.
• Utilize dolphins to inspire humanity towards greater stewardship of our oceans.

How do we do it?

A Novel Technique for Decoding Cetacean Language

This breakthrough technique involves making dolphin and whale sounds visible in water, possibly mimicking the very mechanisms that nature evolved in the cetaceans' own sound-receiving apparatus. Using a newly developed instrument, the CymaScope, a team led by Jack Kassewitz in the USA and John Stuart Reid in the UK aim to build a lexicon of cetacean words, each word having a specific meaning and each forming a recognizable pattern, known as a CymaGlyph.  

This novel technique is at an early stage of development but there are already signs that it is exactly what researchers have been looking for as a means of exploring cetacean language. Dolphin and whale sounds are complex and conventional sound analyzers (that provide graphical representations) have not proven to be particularly helpful. Instead of providing a graph of a particular cetacean sound, the CymaScope imprints each sound on the surface of water, rather like a fingerprint on glass. Each cetacean sound forms micro disturbances in the surface of the water that can be captured by a digital camera, creating a 'glyph' that may resemble what the dolphin or whale actually sees and recognizes in its audio and visual cortices. 

Dolphin Glyphs

When Europeans first traveled to Egypt, the hieroglyphic language they found was a mystery. The splendors of Egypt were visible for all to see but with no understanding of its written word, it was not possible to gain an insight into the minds of the people who created that great civilization. In fact, their written language remained a mystery until the early 1800's when Englishman, Thomas Young and Frenchman, Jean-Francois Champollion discovered key components of the "primer", the keys that unlocked the code to the ancient Egyptian language.

Although we can appreciate the beauty of dolphins and whales (cetaceans), their language has remained a mystery to us throughout history.  Now, with the advent of the CymaScope, dolphin and whale sounds can be made visible.   Such visible sound patterns are called "CymaGlyphs" and we have begun to create a library of what could be thought of as the hieroglyphic language of cetaceans.  

By studying the body language and behaviors of dolphins and whales in relation to the sounds they make, we anticipate that a "cetacean primer" will emerge, and like the one that deciphered hieroglyphs, it will allow us to glimpse a once hidden world. The language of dolphins and whales may soon be unlocked.