Seeing Through Sound: Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) Perceive the Spatial Structure of Objects Through Echolocation

Experiment 1 tested a dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) for cross-modal recognition of 25 unique pairings of 8 familiar, complexly shaped objects, using the senses of echolocation and vision. Cross-modal recognition was errorless or nearly so for 24 of the 25 pairings under both visual to echoic matchi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of comparative psychology (1983) 1998-09, Vol.112 (3), p.292-305
Main Authors: Herman, Louis M, Pack, Adam A, Hoffmann-Kuhnt, Matthias
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal
Animals
Association Learning - physiology
Chi-Square Distribution
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Dolphins
Dolphins & porpoises
Dolphins - physiology
Dolphins - psychology
Ears & hearing
Echolocation
Echolocation - physiology
Female
Form and Shape Perception
Form Perception - physiology
Object Recognition
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Psychology
Sensory perception
Spatial Perception
Vision
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Summary:Experiment 1 tested a dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) for cross-modal recognition of 25 unique pairings of 8 familiar, complexly shaped objects, using the senses of echolocation and vision. Cross-modal recognition was errorless or nearly so for 24 of the 25 pairings under both visual to echoic matching (V-E) and echoic to visual matching (E-V). First-trial recognition occurred for 20 pairings under V-E and for 24 under E-V. Echoic decision time under V-E averaged only 1.88 s. Experiment 2 tested 4 new pairs of objects for 24 trials of V-E and 24 trials of E-V without any prior exposure of these objects. Two pairs yielded performance significantly above chance in both V-E and E-V. Also, the dolphin matched correctly on 7 of 8 1st trials with these pairs. The results support a capacity for direct echoic perception of object shape by this species and demonstrate that prior object exposure is not required for spontaneous cross-modal recognition.
ISSN:0735-7036
1939-2087
DOI:10.1037/0735-7036.112.3.292