Whale song shows language-like statistical structure

IF 45.8 1区综合性期刊 Q1 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES

Science Pub Date : 2025-02-06

Inbal Arnon, Simon Kirby, Jenny A. Allen, Claire Garrigue, Emma L. Carroll, Ellen C. Garland

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Humpback whale song is a culturally transmitted behavior. Human language, which is also culturally transmitted, has statistically coherent parts whose frequency distribution follows a power law. These properties facilitate learning and may therefore arise because of their contribution to the faithful transmission of language over multiple cultural generations. If so, we would expect to find them in other culturally transmitted systems. In this study, we applied methods based on infant speech segmentation to 8 years of humpback recordings, uncovering in whale song the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language. This commonality, in two evolutionarily distant species, points to the role of learning and cultural transmission in the emergence of properties thought to be unique to human language.

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鲸鱼的歌声显示出类似语言的统计结构

座头鲸的歌声是一种文化传播行为。人类语言也是文化传播的，它有统计上连贯的部分，其频率分布遵循幂律。这些特性有助于学习，因此可能是因为它们有助于语言在多文化世代中忠实地传播。如果是这样，我们期望在其他文化传播系统中找到它们。在这项研究中，我们将基于婴儿语音分割的方法应用于8年的座头鲸录音，发现鲸鱼歌曲中具有与人类语言相同的统计结构。在两个进化距离较远的物种中，这种共性指出了学习和文化传播在人类语言特性出现中的作用，这些特性被认为是人类语言独有的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Science 综合性期刊-综合性期刊

CiteScore

61.10

自引率

0.90%

发文量

审稿时长

2.1 months

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