The understanding that can develop between people and animals is often almost uncanny. Dogs are good at interpreting their owner’s wishes so that at times they appear to possess a sixth sense. Horses, too, can respond to the subtlest of cues, as the complex movements of Dressage demonstrate. But will it ever be possible for people to communicate with animals using ordinary language?
Some years ago intensive efforts were made to communicate with dolphins. These mammals have brains which are similar in size to that of a human being, and they seem to be very intelligent. Dolphins are also capable of making a wide range of sounds, including squeaks, groans, clicks, barks and whistles, to indicate alarm, threat and a recognition.
Attempts to interrupt this language have not been successful. But scientists have proved that these creatures, and sea lions, can recognise hand gestures – a form of language – and can respond correctly.
Rocky, a 13 year old sea lion at the Long Marine laboratory in Santa Cruz, California, has been trained to identify objects, by being rewarded when he gets it right, and he can now collect from his pool only the toy that he is asked for. His trainer, Ron Schusterman of the university of California, scatters up to a dozen different toys in the pool- balls, discs, bottles and so on. An assistant who sits on the edge of the pool makes signs to the sea lion asking him to collect a particular toy, and Rocky picks up the right item 95% of the time.
More significantly, he has also been taught the meaning of much more complex commands such as ‘take the ball to the disc’, or ‘take the small Black disc to the bottle’. The success rate of his responses on such a task is only 40%. However it would be impossible for him to do even that well by chance. To some extent at least, he appears to understand simple sentences.
Picture Credit : Google