This Blog Post by
Emily Lau, Hunter College
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| Photo: Egyptian Fruit Bat; Source: Fethiye Times |
As
I was reading the science section of the New York Times, I came across an
interesting and linguistically relevant article reporting on the study of vocal
learning in bats[1].
The writer, Steph Yin, begins this piece with a personal anecdote, highlighting
how she adopted English in preschool rather quickly despite growing up in a
household that only spoke Mandarin. Yin proceeds to tie this in with a recent
study on fruit bats, which revealed that young bat pups vocalized in the same
manner as the whole group, even if this vocalization was different than their
mother’s[2].
They found that the bats exposed to higher pitches began to
emit high pitch calls and that the bats exposed to lower pitches emitted lower
pitch calls. To put this in context, Dr. Yovel, a scientist in this study who
featured in the NY Times piece, stated that these differences in pitch are
comparable to different accents (like Texan and New England).
Photo: Accents; Source: Thrillist
These
researchers would like to further their work by understanding how this learned
change in pitch, or dialect, would affect the bat’s social behaviors. I think
it would be interesting to look at twin studies of these bats as well. Given
that these two twins are genetically identical, a bat twin study could further
our knowledge on nature vs. nurture (if behaviors are inherited or acquired).
This
phenomenon is called “vocal learning” and explains how organisms can acquire
and produce sound. In humans (especially infants and toddlers), this ability is
extremely important in language and social development. Previously, animal
behaviorists determined that vocal learning can be found in animals such as hummingbirds
and elephants. This study is groundbreaking because it further asserts that
vocal learning exists in animals other than humans, therefore refuting the
“human exceptionalism belief”, or the belief that humans are distinctly
different from all other animals.
Photo: Hummingbird; Source: Phenomena National
Geographic
Future
vocal learning research in all branches of the animal kingdom will reveal
whether human vocal learning is an ancestral or independently evolved behavior.
In the future, if we do discover vocal learning in a diverse range of animals,
the belief of human exceptionalism would most likely crumble.
Given
these results, do you think humans are unique in their language acquisition
skills?
Do you think a bat’s dialect would have an impact on its social
behaviors?
Are there more animals that are capable of vocal learning?
And
finally: could animals potentially have language?
[1] Teaching Bats to Say
‘Move Out of My Way’ in Many Dialects: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/science/bats-dialects-vocal-learning.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience
[2] Crowd vocal learning
induces vocal dialects in bats: Playback of conspecific shapes fundamental
frequency usage by pups: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2002556
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