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Many animals use sounds to convey information. [Sound of wolf howl] Humans use particular vocal labels for objects and for people. We call these words, and names.
许多动物用声音来传递信息。比如狼嚎。人类用特殊的声音标签指称物体和同类。我们把这些声音标签叫做单词和名字。
A few creatures, such as parrots and dolphins, can learn specific vocal labels. And wild dolphins are known to have particular, individual signature whistles. Scientists at Scotland’s St. Andrews University wanted to know: can these whistles be used as labels?
一些生物，比如说鹦鹉和海豚，能学习特殊的声音标签。野生海豚有特殊的个人专属口哨。苏格兰圣安德鲁斯大学的科学家想弄清楚这些口哨能够成为标签。
The researchers analyzed sounds from dolphins off Scotland’s east coast, and extracted these signature whistles. [Dolphin whistle sound] Then they altered the sounds so the calls wouldn’t sound exactly like the originating dolphin. [Altered dolphin whistle]
They played those sounds back to the dolphins, along with whistles from dolphins familiar to the animals and whistles from strangers.
研究人员分析了苏格兰东海岸海豚的声音，并且截取了专属口哨。然后他们改变了声音，让叫声听起来跟原始的声音不一样。他们把这些声音重新放给海豚们听，包括原始声音和改变了的声音。
When the dolphins heard their own signature whistle [Altered dolphin whistle] they routinely responded with that same sound. [Dolphin whistle sound] That reaction only happened twice when they heard sounds from their pals and not at all when they heard the alien dolphin. The research is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
海豚听到它们的专属口哨的时候报以同样的回音。这种反应只在它们听到从它们同伴那里发出的声音时才发生了两次，而对陌生海豚的声音则没有回应。研究发表在美国国家科学院院刊上。
The researchers think dolphin signature whistles serve as self-identification, and maybe even as a label for addressing each other—just like a name.
研究人员认为海豚专属口哨是一个个人身份认证，甚至可能跟名字一样用来互相联系。
—Cynthia Graber
