Essay
What do animal studies tell us about communication and/or language?
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Essay of 8 pages for the course Neuroscience And Behaviour at UON
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Student Number: 4314752What do animal studies tell us about communication and/or language?
The ability to communicate effectively and be infinitely creative with our
language is something we often take for granted as human beings. However,
through various studies it has become apparent that we are in fact the only
species able to communicate in such a way. Throughout this essay I will look at
studies that examine the various ways in which different animal species are able
to communicate with one another, the content they communicate as well as the
limitations their methods of communication face, in comparison with human
communication.
“Communication is the process by which any message is given or received
through talking, writing, or making gestures” (“Communication”, Psychology
Wiki, 2019). It must have a physical signal such as a sight or sound. Additionally,
it is necessary for there to be a signaller to send the signal and a receiver to
receive it for communication to take place. One cannot assume a signaller and
receiver are always intending to send and receive signals (thus communicating).
Cues are often confused with intentional communication. An example of this
would be warning signals. Some animals have bright colours on their body
indicating that they are poisonous to predators or a certain number of spots
indicative of their dominance. However, having these features is entirely out of
their control, so although this sends a message to predators, it cannot be classed
as communication.
Communication is vital to the survival of animals, it allows them to emit alarms,
signal nearby food as well as a method of mate attraction (essential for
reproduction and carrying their genes into the next generation). Different
, Student Number: 4314752
species have different methods of communicating (some innate) to signal this
type of important information to the desired receiver.
Firstly, I will address communication in the honey bee species. Karl von Frisch
(1960) conducted a study on Honeybees to investigate their system of
communicating and found it to be fairly complex. In order to alert fellow
members of its hive of the nearby source of nectar, a honeybee can carry out
various dances depending on distance and direction from the hive.
When a bee discovers nectar less than 100 metres from the hive, it will return to
the hive and alert fellow bees by performing the “round dance”. The bee turns in
circles to the left and then the right, and continues to alternate for 30 seconds.
Other bees will gather round and then fly off.
The quality of the source is indicated by excitement with which the bee dances
and the number of repetitions of the dance.
The waggle dance is performed to indicate that the source of nectar is more than
100 metres from the hive. This consists of a side-to-side “waggling” motion
whilst running in a straight line. Again, the quality of the source is indicated by
excitement of the dance. Impressively, the angle of the waggle run indicates the
direction the bees need to fly to reach the source. The speed of the dance
indicates the precise distance of the source by the number of repetitions per
minute. So, the closer the source is, the faster the bee will dance.
Bees instinctively know how to perform the dance as if it is a response to a
stimulus (the nectar); it does not need to be learned from watching others.
However, critics of the study suggested that bees simply just use odour to source
the nectar (Wenner and Wells, 1960) because many bees travel to the nectar
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