Whale song shows language-like statistical structure

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arnon, Inbal; Kirby, Simon; Allen, Jenny A.; Garrigue, Claire; Carroll, Emma L.; Garland, Ellen C.
• 署名单位: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; University of Edinburgh; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; Griffith University; Universite Nouvelle Caledonie; Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD); University of Auckland; University of St Andrews; University of St Andrews
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-10920
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adq7055
• 发表日期: 2025-02-07
• 页码: 649-653
• 关键词: zipfs law; humpback whales; cultural transmission; information-theory; least effort; origins; compression; PRINCIPLE; EVOLUTION; insights

摘要

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.