Dolphins "have their own names" 研究發現：海豚能相互稱呼「名字」
A bottlenose dolphin at SeaWorld in San Diego. Bottlenose dolphins can call each other by name when they whistle, making them the only animals besides humans known to recognize such identity information, scientists reported on Monday.
Dolphins communicate like humans by calling each other by name, scientists in Fife reported on Monday.
Scientists have long known that dolphins' whistling calls include repeated information thought to be their names, but a new study indicates dolphins recognize these names even when voice cues are removed from the sound.
St Andrews University researchers studying in Sarasota Bay off Florida's west coast Florida discovered bottlenose dolphins used names rather than sound to identify each other.
The three-year-study was funded by the Royal Society of London.
Dr Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Unit at St Andrews University, said they conducted the research on wild dolphins.
"We captured wild dolphins using nets when they came near the shore," he said.
"Then in the shallow water we recoded their whistles before synthesising them on a computer with the caller's voice features removed so that we had a computer voice of a dolphin.
"Then we played it back to the dolphins through an underwater speaker and we found they responded strongly. This showed us that the dolphins know each other's signature whistle instead of just the voice.
"Now we know they have labels for each other like we do."
The findings are published in the US journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (Agencies)本周一，蘇格蘭法夫郡的科學家們公布，海豚和人類一樣，通過稱呼對方的「名字」進行交流。
科學家們一直認為海豚叫聲中包含的一些重複信息是它們的名字，但最新的一項研究表明，即使將聲音中的音色因素消除，海豚也能識別出這些名字。
英國聖安德魯大學的研究人員們在位於佛羅裡達西海岸的薩拉索塔灣進行了此項研究，發現寬吻海豚並非通過嗓音，而是通過「名字」(叫聲的內容)來識別對方。
倫敦皇家學會為這項長達三年的研究項目提供了資金支持。
聖安德魯大學海洋哺乳動物研究中心的文森特·雅尼克博士說，他們的研究對象是野生海豚。
他說：「當海豚靠近海岸時，我們就用網子將它們捉住。」
「然後，我們在淺水區中將海豚的叫聲重新編碼，隨即用電腦將叫聲合成，並消除叫聲的聲音特點，這樣就得到了每隻海豚叫聲的電子合成聲。」
「接著，我們用一個水下揚聲器將電子合成聲播放給海豚聽，發現它們有強烈的反應。這表明海豚能識別彼此的'署名叫聲'，而並不僅僅是嗓音。」
「現在我們知道了海豚像人類一樣，擁有自己的『名字』。」
此項研究結果在美國《國家科學院學報》上發表。(中國日報網站編譯)
Vocabulary:
synthesize : to combine and adapt in order to attain a particular effect(合成)