Indicators of Tursiops truncatus cognition level

Charlene N. Rivera-Bonet
ABSTRACT: Tursiops truncatus, commonly known as bottlenose dolphins, present a level of
intelligence above normal for animals apart from humans. Several scientists, interested in this peculiar organism, have made different attempts to test their cognition. This review paper discusses several indicators of high levels of cognition present in dolphins. Those indicators are relationship between themselves and with humans, problem solving, personality, self-recognition and brain structure. Every investigation successfully proved a high cognition level since every activity the dolphins were required was performed and the behaviors observed also reflected it.

Introduction A rational animal is defined as one that can perceive and represent how its world is structured and functions, and can make logical inferences and draw conclusions that enable it to function effectively and productively in that world (Herman 2005). Several studies have been made involving Tursiops truncatus, better known as Bottlenose Dolphins. They have very distinctive characteristics, being their cognition and intelligence the main topic of interest. Second to humans, these animals have an intelligence level above every other animal. Ways of reflecting that cognition involves echolocation, problem solving methods, quick learning, behavioral mimicry, and the ability to understand commands, personality, and grouping patterns. Another attention catcher in dolphins is their brain. Their brain to body mass ratio is second to modern humans and greater that every other mammal. Studies relate their brain structure and size to their cognition. There are activities that take place in their brains, unique to dolphins. One of them is using only one hemisphere of the brain to rest while the other one is active. They do this in order to be able to come out to the surface and breathe while resting. There is not an appropriate test to exactly measure a dolphins intelligence. Compared to human intelligence, dolphin intelligence is harder to

measure, due to their lack of a language similar to humans. In order to come close to measuring their intelligence scientists develop certain techniques to observe how they act under different conditions or situations. This review intends to compare the different techniques scientists have used to analyze dolphins cognition. The cognitive areas chosen for comparison are relationships, problem solving, and the ability to understand commands, personality and self recognition. Relationships Dolphins are gregarious animals that live in groups of up to 100 individuals. They participate in fissionfusion societies in which subgroups frequently join or leave the subgroup (Jenkins 2009). An investigation conducted with Shark Bay dolphins reveals that this fission-fusion activity presents two types of cognitive challenge. These are occurring in a changing social setting. They place a premium on the evolving cognitive abilities and introduce uncertainty into an individuals knowledge of third party relations. The dolphin's vocal plasticity from infancy through adulthood, in what is probably an open communication system, is likely to be related to their fission-fusion social structure and, specifically, to the fluidity of their short-term associations. (Reiss et al. 1997) Dolphins are the only non-human animals which show strong evidence of vocal mimicry and learning (Reiss et al. 1997). Dolphins communicate

with each other through whistles. It is believed that each dolphin possesses its own signature whistle which they retain for the rest of their lives (Jenkins 2009). They can modify it depending on their state, environment or the task they are performing, for example, when a dolphin is distressed it may perform its whistle very loudly. Also, in order to catch another dolphins attention they may imitate their whistles. In addition to whistles, body language and touch may also be used as other communication methods. These methods may include rolling eyes, shaking head, playing dead, biting, holding hands, and rubbing or tooth raking. Female dolphin relationship with their calves may also vary between individuals. Observations made by Hill et al. (2007) suggest that several mothers were restrictive with their calves, and others were permissive. There is a possibility that maternal style may affect the calfs personality development. Problem Solving According to Reiss (1997), dolphins have three kinds of vocal signals: one is for broad-band, one for wide-band pulsed sounds, and another one for echolocation. They echolocate by emitting short, high intensity clicks and listening to the resulting echoes. Mercado III and DeLong (2010) compare the dolphin echolocation to humans sense of touch. The same way we can feel and control things with our hands, dolphins are able to perceive and acquire information and build a representation from their surroundings through echolocation. In order to do so, they must emit several clicks to be able to represent the entire object. Dolphins may use echolocation to get familiarized with new environments, hunting a fast prey, or identifying new objects. Dolphins also demonstrate their cognition through tool use. This is how they use what surrounds them for their advantage. Studying tool use in animals provides insight into the social, ecological, and evolutionary context in which it arises. In mammals it positively correlates with brain size, social transmission, and innovation and is considered to be a sign of cognitive capacity. (Patterson, Mann 2011). The authors showed how bottlenose dolphins use sponges as tools for hunting. They concluded that dolphins use sponges to protect their mouth when hunting swimbladderless preys, which hide under rubble-littered substrate. Dolphins spend

a reasonable amount of time looking for a sponge that would perfectly fit their mouth. Personality In accordance with Highfill and Kuczaj II (2007) dolphins maintain stable personalities no matter what changes they may undergo. In their study, they experimented with 16 dolphins that were affected by Hurricane Katrina. They were displaced several times, and later reunited. The different personalities they measured were the following: (1) openness to experience, (2) conscientiousness, (3) extroversion, (4) agreeableness, and (5) neuroticism. Those characteristics were subdivided into more groups, for example: openness to experience was subdivided into creativeness, curiosity and intelligence; conscientiousness was subdivided into cautious, alert and diligent; extroversions subdivisions were assertive, playful and energetic; the subdivisions of agreeableness were friendly, obedient, and affiliative; and neuroticism was subdivided into jealous and aggressive. Each group also included the opposite characteristic (e.g. assertive- timid). Their results suggested that dolphin personality is stable, even after they underwent drastic social and physical environmental changes. They point out, The fact that the majority of these dolphins personality profiles remained stable through all of these changes provides strong support for the notion that individual differences among dolphins reflect stable personalities. Determining the factors that influence the ontogeny of dolphin personality and its stability is an important next step as is the ability to relate dolphin personality to dolphin behavior. (Highfill & Kuczaj 2007). Dolphin and Humans Pack and Herman (2007) tested the dolphins abilities to understand human pointing, head-gazing cues and the identity of an indicated object plus its location. Three experiments were performed with two dolphins. In general they had to select a far away cued object among two alternatives, either by matching it or by acting directly on it, and they also had to process the geometry of pointing cues. Their results indicated that the dolphins could identify what a human is referring to and where.

Other than that, dolphins also understand gestural signs such as back dive, blow bubbles, tail wave, open mouth, spiral swim, as well as spit water and pirouette. They can also combine up to three different commands and perform them all at once. They would spit water while swimming on their backs and slapping a pectoral fin on the water surface. They are not trained to make such combinations. They also understand a create signal, which allows them to perform a new behavior. They can create a behavior of their own, or choose whatever they want to perform. Apart from entertainment, dolphins are involved in other more serious activities. Examples of these are underwater mine location. The U.S. Navy trains dolphins in order to use their echolocation to locate underwater mines and to find lost or trapped humans. They are also involved in DolphinAssisted Therapies, where children with severe disabilities have the chance to interact with them, having positive results on their skills. Self-Recognition A rare capacity among animals is being able to selfrecognize in a mirror. The only animals that have shown to have this ability are humans, apes and dolphins. Scientists tested this ability on two dolphins. The subject was marked and shammarked in a pool with walls of varying degrees of reflectivity. The subject spent a greater amount of time engaged in self-directed behaviors at reflective surfaces when he was marked than when he was sham-marked. If there was no mirror during the trial the dolphin would spend more time at the best reflective surfaces available, and when there was a mirror they spent considerably more time engaged with self-directed behaviors in front of the mirror. These results represent a striking case of cognitive convergence in the face of profound differences in neuroanatomical characteristics and evolutionary history. The question of whether dolphins are capable of more complex forms of self-awareness, such as introspection and mental state attribution, remains unanswered. (Reiss and Marino 2000). Apart from self-recognition, behavioral selfawareness has been tested too. This was done by using any or repeat commands. The dolphin was given five behaviors: jump over an object, swim under it, touch it with the tail, touch it with

the pectoral fin or mouth it. It consisted on giving the dolphin one of these commands and after completing the task, the trainer would give the command of either repeat (perform the behavior again) or any (deliberately choose any of the five commands). The dolphin successfully performed the succession of commands the trainer had pointed with 79% to 95% out of 160 successions. The evidence for rational responding the investigation presents is that the subject had to maintain a mental representation of what it last performed, update it with the next behavior, process the repeat or any gesture and either select a new behavior or repeat the last one (Herman 2005). Brain "If we use relative brain size as a metric of 'intelligence' then one would have to conclude that dolphins are second in intelligence to modern humans", points Lori Marino, senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University. She points out that many dolphin brains are much larger than our own and as mentioned before, are second in mass to the human brain in relation to body size. A large expanse of neocortical volume, more convoluted than humans, extensive insular and cingulated regions, and highly differentiated cellular regions, are features that are associated with complex intelligence (Marino 2012). Huggenberger (2008) described several aspects of the dolphins brain. The neuron density is low in their neocortex, but their synaptic density, which is the maximal number of synapses per neuron, is similar to that in humans. He suggests that during evolution, dolphins multiplied their relevant structures as neocortical surface area and neuron number, rather than increasing their complexity. This probably happened as an adaptation to the aquatic environment. Another characteristic, unique to dolphins, is the ability to rest with only one hemisphere of the brain. The reason they do this is because they have to come up for air from time to time. They can alternate each hemisphere of the brain for resting.

Conclusion Herman (2005), describes rational behavior as responding adaptively to the perceived elements and dynamics of the world, inferring, extrapolating, deducting, concluding, or creating behavior as necessary. Based on this description, we could say dolphins have rational behavior. Even thou an exact measure of dolphin cognition cannot be made, several experiments can bring us closer to understanding them. Their intelligence can be observed through how they relate among each other, how they use the things that surround them to solve problems they may encounter, and by analyzing their personalities. Their intelligence is also observable through their ability to understand human pointing and gazing, self-recognition and their brain structure. Some of these characteristics may be present in other animals as vocal mimicry in parrots, but dolphins are the only non-human mammals to have all of these characteristics together. Overall, dolphins are very similar to humans since every characteristic presented is shared except for brain structure. Every study reviewed, successfully concluded that there is a high level of intelligence in dolphins, and it is above every other animal, with the exception of humans. Luckily, their intelligence is not wasted since they use it for significant reasons. They use it to meet challenges in their wild life, as sponging is used to hunt and even thou humans mostly use dolphins for entertainment and spectacles, they have significant roles in the Navy and in therapies for mentally ill children. References
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