Janik V M, Sayigh L S, Wells R S
Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution and Sea Mammal Research Unit, School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, Fife KY16 8LB, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 May 23;103(21):8293-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0509918103. Epub 2006 May 12.
Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) develop individually distinctive signature whistles that they use to maintain group cohesion. Unlike the development of identification signals in most other species, signature whistle development is strongly influenced by vocal learning. This learning ability is maintained throughout life, and dolphins frequently copy each other's whistles in the wild. It has been hypothesized that signature whistles can be used as referential signals among conspecifics, because captive bottlenose dolphins can be trained to use novel, learned signals to label objects. For this labeling to occur, signature whistles would have to convey identity information independent of the caller's voice features. However, experimental proof for this hypothesis has been lacking. This study demonstrates that bottlenose dolphins extract identity information from signature whistles even after all voice features have been removed from the signal. Thus, dolphins are the only animals other than humans that have been shown to transmit identity information independent of the caller's voice or location.
宽吻海豚（瓶鼻海豚）会发出独特的个性签名哨声，用于维持群体凝聚力。与大多数其他物种识别信号的发展不同，个性签名哨声的发展受到发声学习的强烈影响。这种学习能力在一生中都得以保持，并且海豚在野外经常互相模仿哨声。据推测，个性签名哨声可作为同种个体之间的参照信号，因为圈养的宽吻海豚可以被训练使用新学的信号来标记物体。为了实现这种标记，个性签名哨声必须传达独立于发声者语音特征的身份信息。然而，这一假设一直缺乏实验证据。本研究表明，即使从信号中去除了所有语音特征，宽吻海豚仍能从个性签名哨声中提取身份信息。因此，海豚是除人类之外唯一被证明能独立于发声者的声音或位置传递身份信息的动物。
