sample position, then she should touch the circle. A more user-friendly description of Circe's newly acquired ability was that the triangle was associated with a ball. It is too much of a stretch to infer that in Circe's mind, the triangle was a "word" for ball, at least not in the way we understand and use words. But this was what I hoped my work would ultimately lead to, the development of an artificial language that humans and dolphins could use to communicate.
I took Circe a step farther down this cognitive path with the third experiment, preference testing and free choice. First, I put the three toys—a ball, the necklace, and a ring—in the pool with her. I then sat by the pool for several days, notepad in hand, carefully recording how often she played with each of the toys. I wanted to know which one she preferred most. Ball was her favorite, followed by necklace, followed by ring. Most dolphins love to play with toys, but Circe was especially playful. She would push or carry the toys around the pool or toss them into the air, and often she tossed one of them to me. I tossed it right back, so this piece of work was essentially a game, one that strengthened the bond that was developing between us.
The real challenge came in the next part of the study. Circe had learned a conditional association of a specific object with a specific symbol: the triangle with the ball, the circle with the necklace float, and the cross with the ring. So now we were all set to do the test and see if Circe would use the symbols to obtain toys and if the symbols she used would match her toy preferences. I put the three symbols on the keyboard, positioned them so she would have equal, easy access to all three positions, and then watched what she did. Would she touch the triangle more than the circle, and the circle more than the cross? This was new cognitive ground for dolphins, and Circe was a star. Given her free choice and control over the keyboard, she asked for her most preferred object most often, the next preferred object a bit less often, and the least preferred object least often. In scientific terms it was a beautiful linear correlation suggesting that Circe could ask for an object she wanted.
Recently I was looking at one of my old notebooks from the lab in Paris, and I came across the proposal I had written for my future research plans. It was: "To create a third language or communication system to exchange information between dolphins,
Tursiops truncatus,
and humans,
Homo sapiens.
" I couldn't help laughing as I read these lines. It is all very lofty and PhD-student-like, very earnest. You have to remember that I was deeply immersed in communication theory and cybernetics, a systems approach to communication. Very mechanistic in a way, looking at the different parts that interact in the system: a human, a dolphin, and a keyboard, which is the interface. "The human experimenter"—that would be me!—"will begin by establishing a relationship with the dolphins," the proposal continued, "establishing trust, and mapping out environment..." And so on.
At the time, John Lilly expected he'd be able to teach dolphins to communicate with humans in English, which I considered to be unrealistic and less interesting than understanding their own forms of communication. While not as extreme as Lilly's notions, my proposal was definitely out there, even naive in its wide-eyed expectations. Nevertheless, in those months working with Circe during the late winter and through the summer of 1979, in the shadow of the majestic Pyrenees, I took the first steps down that ambitious road. I had my first real glimpse into the dolphin mind.
But there was more than that. I had really bonded with Circe, and I think she had with me. I was always eager to see her, and she always greeted me with excitement when I approached the pool, rapidly swimming around, occasionally porpoising a few times, then coming to where I stood, eyes big and eager looking. I
I took Circe a step farther down this cognitive path with the third experiment, preference testing and free choice. First, I put the three toys—a ball, the necklace, and a ring—in the pool with her. I then sat by the pool for several days, notepad in hand, carefully recording how often she played with each of the toys. I wanted to know which one she preferred most. Ball was her favorite, followed by necklace, followed by ring. Most dolphins love to play with toys, but Circe was especially playful. She would push or carry the toys around the pool or toss them into the air, and often she tossed one of them to me. I tossed it right back, so this piece of work was essentially a game, one that strengthened the bond that was developing between us.
The real challenge came in the next part of the study. Circe had learned a conditional association of a specific object with a specific symbol: the triangle with the ball, the circle with the necklace float, and the cross with the ring. So now we were all set to do the test and see if Circe would use the symbols to obtain toys and if the symbols she used would match her toy preferences. I put the three symbols on the keyboard, positioned them so she would have equal, easy access to all three positions, and then watched what she did. Would she touch the triangle more than the circle, and the circle more than the cross? This was new cognitive ground for dolphins, and Circe was a star. Given her free choice and control over the keyboard, she asked for her most preferred object most often, the next preferred object a bit less often, and the least preferred object least often. In scientific terms it was a beautiful linear correlation suggesting that Circe could ask for an object she wanted.
Recently I was looking at one of my old notebooks from the lab in Paris, and I came across the proposal I had written for my future research plans. It was: "To create a third language or communication system to exchange information between dolphins,
Tursiops truncatus,
and humans,
Homo sapiens.
" I couldn't help laughing as I read these lines. It is all very lofty and PhD-student-like, very earnest. You have to remember that I was deeply immersed in communication theory and cybernetics, a systems approach to communication. Very mechanistic in a way, looking at the different parts that interact in the system: a human, a dolphin, and a keyboard, which is the interface. "The human experimenter"—that would be me!—"will begin by establishing a relationship with the dolphins," the proposal continued, "establishing trust, and mapping out environment..." And so on.
At the time, John Lilly expected he'd be able to teach dolphins to communicate with humans in English, which I considered to be unrealistic and less interesting than understanding their own forms of communication. While not as extreme as Lilly's notions, my proposal was definitely out there, even naive in its wide-eyed expectations. Nevertheless, in those months working with Circe during the late winter and through the summer of 1979, in the shadow of the majestic Pyrenees, I took the first steps down that ambitious road. I had my first real glimpse into the dolphin mind.
But there was more than that. I had really bonded with Circe, and I think she had with me. I was always eager to see her, and she always greeted me with excitement when I approached the pool, rapidly swimming around, occasionally porpoising a few times, then coming to where I stood, eyes big and eager looking. I
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