Dialog with black box: Using information theory to study animal language behaviour

Acta Ethologica

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-12

  Reznikova, Zhanna ^a  

^a NOVOSIBIRSK STATE UNIVERSITY   (Russian Federation)

Author keywords

Animal communication; Deciphering signals; Experimental approach; Information Theory; Intermediary languages

Indexed keywords

ANIMALIA;

EID: 34248165996     PISSN: 08739749     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10211-007-0026-x     Document Type: Review

References (109)

1. Bonavita-Cougourdan A, Morel L (1984) Les activités antennaires au cours des contacts trophallactiques ches la Fourmi Camponotus vagus Scop. Ont-elles valeur de signal? Insectes Soc 31:113-131
2. Bugnyar T, Kijne M, Kotrschal K (2001) Food calling in ravens: are yells referential signals? Anim Behav 61:949-958
3. Camazine S, Visscher PK, Finley J, Vetter R (1999) House-hunting by honey bee swarms: collective decisions and individual behaviors. Insectes Soc 46:348-360
4. Cheney DL, Seyfarth RM (1997) Why animals don't have language. The Tanner lectures on human values. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 1-37
5. Devigne C, Detrain C (2006) How does food distance influences foraging in the ant Lasius niger L.: the importance of home-range marking. Insectes Soc 53:46-55
6. Dornhaus A, Chittka L (1999) Evolutionary origins of bee dances. Nature 401:38
7. Dyer FC (1991) Bees acquire route-based memories but not cognitive maps in a familiar landscape. Anim Behav 41:239-246
8. Evans WE, Bastian J (1969) Marine mammal communication social and ecological factors. In: Andersen HT (ed) The Biology of marine mammals. Academic, New York, pp 425-475
9. Evans CS, Marler P (1991) On the use of video images as social stimuli in birds: audience effects on alarm calling. Anim Behav 41:17-26
10. Fouts RS (1997) Next of kin, my conversations with chimpanzees. William Morrow, New York
11. Fouts RS, Hirsch AD, Fouts DH (1982) Cultural transmission of a human language in a chimpanzee mother-infant relationship. In: Fitzgerald HE, Mullins JA, Page P (eds) Psychobiological perspectives: child nurturance. vol 3. Plenum, New York, pp 159-196
12. Franks NR, Richardson T (2006) Teaching in tandem-running ants. Nature 439:153
13. Gardner RA, Gardner BT (1969) Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee. Science 165:664-672
14. Gardner RA, Gardner BT (1980) Comparative psychology and language acquisition. In: Sebeok TA, Umiker-Sebeok JTA (eds) Speaking of apes: a critical anthology of two-way communication with man. Plenum, New York, pp 287-329
15. Gardner RA, Gardner BT (1998) The structure of learning. Lawrence Earlbaum, Mahwah, NJ
16. Garner RL (1892) The speech of monkeys. C. L. Webster, New York
17. Gould JL (1976) The dance language controversy. Q Rev Biol 57:211-244
18. Gould JL, Gould CG (1988) The honey bee. Scientific American Library, W. H. Freeman, New York
19. Green S (1975) Dialects in Japanese monkeys: vocal learning and cultural transmission of locale-specific behavior? Z Tierpsychol 38:304-314
20. Hölldobler B (1985) Liquid food transmission and antennation signals in ponerine ants. Isr J Entomol 19:89-99
21. Hölldobler B, Wilson EO (1990) The ants. Belknap, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
22. Haldane J, Spurway H (1954) A statistical analysis of communication in Apis mellifera and a comparison with communication in other animals. Insectes Soc 1:247-283
23. Hauser MD (2000) A Primate dictionary? Decoding the function and meaning of another species' vocalizations. Cogn Sci 24:445-475
24. Hauser MD (2001) What's so special about speech. In: Dupoux E (ed) Language, brain and cognitive development: essays in honor of Jacques Mehler. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 121-134
25. Hauser MD, Marler P (1992) How do and should studies of animal communication affect interpretations of child phonological development? In: Ferguson C, Menn L, Stoel-Gammon C (eds) Phonological development. York, Maryland, pp 663-680
26. Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch WT (2002) The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298:1569-1579
27. Heinrich B (1999) The mind of the raven. Harper Collins, New York
28. Herman LM (1980) Cognitive characteristics of dolphins. In: Herman LM (ed) Cetacean behavior: mechanisms and functions. Interscience, New York, pp 363-429
29. Herman LM (1990) Cognitive performance of dolphins in visually guided tasks. In: Thomas A, Kastelein RA (eds) Sensory abilities of cetaceans: laboratory and field evidence. Plenum, New York, pp 455-462
30. Herman LM, Forestell PH (1985) Reporting presence or absence of named objects by a language-trained dolphin. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 9:667-691
31. Herman LM, Richards DG, Woltz JP (1984) Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins. Cognition 16:129-219
32. Herman LM, Abichandani SL, Elhajj AN, Herman EYK, Sanchez JL, Pack AA (1999) Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) comprehend the referential character of the human pointing gesture. J Comp Psychol 113:1-18
33. Hickling R, Brown RL (2000) Analysis of acoustic communication by ants. J Acoust Soc Am 108:1920-1929
34. Hockett CD (1963) The problem of universals in language. In: Greenberg JH (ed) Universals of language. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 1-22
35. Hollander M, Wolf DA (1973) Nonparametric statistical methods. Wiley, New York
36. Hollén LI, Manser MB (2006) Ontogeny of alarm call responses in meerkats (Suricata suricatta): the roles of age, sex and nearby conspecifics. Anim Behav 72:1345-1353
37. Janik VM (2000) Food-related bray calls in wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Proc R Soc 267:923-927
38. Kirchner W, Towne W (1994) The sensory basis of the honeybee's dance language. Sci Am 270:74-80
39. Kolmogorov AN (1965) Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information. Probl Inf Transm 1:1-7
40. Land BB, Seeley TD (2004) The grooming invitation dance of the honey bee. Ethology 110:1-10
41. Lawick-Goodall J (1968) The behaviour of free-living chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve. Anim Behav Monogr 1:61-311
42. Le Breton J, Fourcassié V (2004) Information transfer during recruitment in the ant Lasius niger L. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 55:242-250
43. Lenoir A, Jaisson P (1982) Evolution et role des communications anntennaires chez les insects sociaux. In: Jaisson P (ed) Social insects in the tropics. Presses de l'Université Paris XIII, Paris, pp 157-180
44. Lewis LA, Schneider SS (2000) The modulation of worker behavior by the vibration signal during house hunting in swarms of the honeybee, Apis mellifera. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 48:154-164
45. Lindauer M (1961) Communication among social bees. Harvard University Press, Camb
46. Lorenz K (1952) King Solomon's ring. Crowell, New York
47. Manser MB (2001) The acoustic structure of suricates' alarm calls varies with predator type and the level of response urgency. Proc R Soc 268:2315-2324
48. Markov VI, Ostrovskaya VM (1990) Organization of communication system in Tursiops truncatus Montagu. In: Thomas J, Kastelein R (eds) Sensory abilities of cetaceans. Plenum, New York pp 599-622
49. Marler P, Tenaza R (1977) Signaling behavior of apes with special reference to vocalization. In: Sebeok T (ed) How animals communicate. Indiana University Press, Bloomington pp 965-1033
50. Menzel EW (1973a) Chimpanzee spatial memory organization. Science 182:943-945
51. Menzel EW (1973b) Leadership and communication in young chimpanzees. In: Menzel EW (ed) Precultural primate behavior. S. Karger, Basel, pp 192-225
52. Menzel R, Greggers U, Smith A, Berger S, Brandt R, Brunke S, Bundrock G, Hülse S, Plümpe T, Schaupp F, Schüttler E, Stach S, Stindt J, Stollhoff N, Watzl S (2005) Honey bees navigate according to a map-like spatial memory. Proc Nat Acad Sci 102:3040-3045
53. Michelsen A (1993) The transfer of information in the dance language of honeybees: progress and problems. J Comp Physiol 173:135-141
54. Michelsen A (1999) The dance language of honeybees: recent findings and problems. In: Hauser MD, Konishi M (eds) The design of animal communication. MIT Press, Massachusetts, pp 111-113
55. Michelsen A, Andersen BB, Kirchner W, Lindauer M (1990) Transfer of information during honeybee dances, studied by means of a mechanical model. In: Gribakin F, Wiese K, Popov AV (eds) Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, pp 284-300
56. Miles HL (1993) Language and the orangutan: The old «person» of the forest. In: Cavalieri P, Singer P (eds) The great ape project: equality beyond humanity. Fourth Estate, London, pp 42-57
57. Novgorodova TA (2006) Experimental investigation of information transmission in Formica pratensis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) using "the binary tree" maze. Entomol Rev 86:287-293
58. Patterson FG (1978) The gestures of a gorilla: language acquisition in another pongid. Brain Lang 5:72-97
59. Patterson FG, Linden E (1981) The education of Koko. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
60. Pepperberg IM (1981) Functional vocalizations by an African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Z Tierpsychol 55:139-160
61. Pepperberg IM (1983) Cognition in the African grey parrot: preliminary evidence for auditory vocal comprehension of the class concept. Anim Learn Behav 11:179-185
62. Pepperberg IM (1999) The Alex studies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
63. Premack D (1971) Language in chimpanzee? Science 172:808-822
64. Reznikova Z (1982) Interspecific communication among ants. Behaviour 80:84-95
65. Reznikova Z (2001) Interspecific and intraspecific social learning in ants. IEC, Advances in Ethology 36. Blackwell Sciences, p 108
66. Reznikova ZI (2005) Different forms of social learning in ants. In: St. Andrew international conference on animal social learning. University of St. Andrews, p 17
67. Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (1986) Investigations of ant language by methods of Information Theory. Probl Inf Theory 21:103-108
68. Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (1990) Information Theory approach to communication in ants. In: Gribakin FG, Wiese K, Popov AV (eds) Sensory systems and communication in arthropods. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, pp 305-307
69. Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (1994) Experimental study of the ants communication system with the application of the Information Theory approach. Mem Zool 48:219-236
70. Reznikova Z, Ryabko B (2003) In the shadow of the binary tree: of ants and bits. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International workshop of the mathematics and algorithms of social insects. In: Anderson C, Balch T (eds). Georgian Institute of Technology, Atlanta, pp 139-145
71. Robbins RL (2000) Vocal communication in free-ranging African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus). Behaviour 137:1271-1298
72. Rumbaugh DM (1977) Language learning by a chimpanzee. The Lana project. Academic Press, New York
73. Rumbaugh DM, Savage-Rumbaugh ES (1994) Language in comparative perspective. In: Mackintosh NJ (ed) Animal learning and cognition. Academic, New York, pp 307-333
74. Ryabko B (1993) Methods of analysis of animal communication systems based on the Information Theory. In: Wiese K, Gribakin FG, Popov AV, Renninger G (eds) Sensory systems of arthropods. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, pp 627-634
75. Ryabko B, Reznikova Z (1996) Using Shannon Entropy and Kolmogorov Complexity to study the communicative system and cognitive capacities in ants. Complexity 1:37-42
76. Savage-Rumbaugh ES, Lewin R (1994) Kanzi: the ape at the brink of the human mind. Wiley, New York
77. Savage-Rumbaugh ES, Shanker SG, Taylor TJ (1998) Apes, language and the human mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford
78. Schusterman RJ, Krieger K (1986) Artificial language comprehension and size transposition by a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus). J Comp Psychol 100:348-355
79. Schusterman RJ, Reichmuth Kastak C, Kastak D (2002) The cognitive sea lion: meaning and memory in the lab and in nature. In: Bekoff M, Allen C, Burghardt G (eds) The cognitive animal: empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 217-228
80. Seeley TD (1995) The wisdom of the hive: The social physiology of honey bee colonies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
81. Seeley TD, Kühnholz S, Seeley RH (2002) An early chapter in behavioral physiology and sociobiology: the science of Martin Linaduer. J Comp Physiol 188:439-453
82. Seyfarth RM, Cheney DL (1990) The assessment by vervet monkeys of their own and another species' alarm calls. Anim Behav 40:754-764
83. Seyfarth RM, Cheney DL (2003) Signalers and receivers in animal communication. Ann Rev Psychol 54:145-173
84. Seyfarth RM, Cheney DL, Marler P (1980) Vervet monkey alarm calls semantic communication in a free-ranging primate. Anim Behav 28:1070-1094
85. Shannon C (1948) A mathematical theory of communication, I and II. Bell Syst Tech J 27:379-423, 623-656
86. Slater PJB (2003) Fifty years of bird song research: a case study in animal behaviour. Anim Behav 65:957-969
87. Slobodchikoff CN, Placer J (2006). Acoustic structures in the alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs. J Acoust Soc Am 119:3153-3260
88. Slobodchikoff CN, Kiriazis J, Fischer C, Creef E (1991) Semantic information distinguishing individual predators in the alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs. Anim Behav 42:713-719
89. Snowdon CT (1986) Vocal communication. In: Mitchell G, Erwin J (ed) Comparative primate biology, vol. 2A: behaviour, conservation and ecology. Alan R. Liss, pp 495-530
90. Snowdon CT, Brown CH, Peterson MR (eds) (1982) Primate communication. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
91. Struhsaker T (1967) Behavior of vervet monkeys (Cercopithecusaethiops) University of California Press, Berkeley
92. Tanner DA, Visscher PK (2005) Do honey bees tune error in their dances in nectar-foraging and house-hunting? Behav Ecol Sociobiol 59:571-576
93. Tautz J, Casas J, Sandeman D (2001) Phase reversal of vibratory signals in honeycomb may assist dancing honeybees to attract their audience. J Exp Biol 204:3737-3746
94. Terrace HS (1979) Nim: a chimpanzee who learned sign language. Knopf, New York
95. Theberge JB, Pimlott DH (1969) Observations of wolves at a rendezvous site in Algonquin Park. Can Field Nat 83:122-128
96. Thorne BL, Traniello JF (2003) Comparative social biology of basal taxa of ants and termites. Annu Rev Entomol 48:283-306
97. Ulanova LI (1950) Shaping notations expressing need for food in Monkeys (in Russian). In: Protopopov VP (ed) Studying of high nervous activity by means of natural experiments. Gosmedizdat, Kiev pp 103-114
98. Vauclair J (1996) Animal cognition: recent developments in modern comparative psychology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
99. von Frisch K (1923) Über die Spräche der Bienen. Zool Jahrb Abt Allg Zool Physiol Tiere 40:1-119
100. von Frisch K (1947) The dances of the honey bee. Bull Anim Behav 5:1-32
101. von Frisch K (1967) The dance language and orientation of bees. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
102. Wallmann JM (1992) Aping language (themes in the social sciences). Cambridge University Press, New York
103. Wasmann E (1899) Die psychischen Fähigkeiten der Ameisen. Zoologica 26:1-133
104. Weidenmüller A, Seeley TD (1999) Imprecision in the waggle dances of the honeybee (Apis mellifera) for nearby food sources: error or adaptation? Behav Ecol Sociobiol 46:190-199
105. Wilson EO (1971) The insect societies. Belknap, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
106. Yaglom AM, Yaglom IM (1976) Challenging mathematical problems with elementary solutions. Holden-Day, San Francisco
107. Yerkes RM (1925) Almost human. The Century, London, New York
108. Zanin AV, Markov VI, Sidorova IE (1990) The ability of bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, to report arbitrary information. In: Thomas J, Kastelein R (eds) Sensory abilities of cetaceans. Plenum, New York, pp 685-697
109. Zuberbühler K (2000) Referential labelling in Diana monkeys. Anim Behav 59:917-927