Disney's Dolphin Research Center Pioneers Research on Autism and More

Would you believe that dolphins are being taught how to use computers at Walt Disney's Epcot Center? Furthermore, the devices they use are monitored and recorded by state-of-the-art equipment at Disney's dolphin research center. KTCA's "Newton's Apple" reports that scientists at the Epcot Center have attempted to communicate with dolphins using a patented underwater keyboard with "cubbyholed" keys, and that dolphins have used their "vision and echolocation to determine which cubbyhole to select when the keyboard was activated." While it is clear that the average Disney dolphin will never have to worry about starving to death, he certainly may need to worry about upgrading his computer's spyware protection.

What are researchers looking for at Disney's dolphin research center?

Description of Keyboard & Computer

For starters, they're interested in doing more than getting dolphins to simply respond to behavioral cues. Disney's researchers are aiming higher than to simply confirm that a dolphin can comprehend "the meaning of a string of symbols (Source: United States Patent 5392735)." These scientists are also interested in confirming that dolphins will be able to "learn symbolic communication skills, particularly those which label social interactions." Their ultimate goal seems to be to develop an equally-balanced communication system between dolphins and humans.

For this purpose, Disney researchers have patented a Marine mammal communication device, which will allow dolphins who are participating in the study to use a submersible keyboard to "select a word or phrase by locating the associated key and by activating the switch for that key to communicate with humans or with another dolphin." While these dolphins are expected to depend on their senses of vision, hearing, and echolocation to make use of the machine, an aim of the device is to teach dolphins words: "Every time a specific key is selected, that key can be illuminated and the word associated with the key repeated."

What Does Current Research Say?

Current research suggests that dolphins rely on wide variety of communication clues to survive, and they cannot simply be expected to concentrate all of their energies on grapling with a new, human-created language system. Rather, dolphins may learn such a system only if it suits their needs.

Case in point: a team of researchers led by Tomonari Akamatsu has concluded that dolphins depend on their sense of vision to provide essential information not fully supplied by their abilities to "echolocate" objects (Source: "Communication and Echolocation").

Insightfully, writer Denise L. Herzing speculates that by encouraging dolphins to learn a complex, human-originated system of communication, researchers may be asking dolphins "to do what we cannot; to be restricted to one modality, such as gestural signs or acoustic cues, and learn a multi-modal language that involves these exact subtle cues.

What Are The Applications?

Dolphins and humans are not strangers by any stretch of the imagination. For quite a while, humans have had a desire to know more about dolphins; as it seems that dolphins have desired to know more about humans. But how can we help each other by sharing a language?

For over two decades, clinical psychologist David Nathanson has explored this issue in his pioneering work with autism patients. He has developed a unique form of autism therapy that is "dolphin-assisted." This autism therapy is based around the priciple that "children or adults will increase attention as a result of a desire to interact with dolphins (Source: "Dolphin Human Therapy: A Professional Association Dedicated to Helping Disabled Children")."

While some theories about the benefits of dolphin-human interaction seem quite speculative, one thing is for sure: Dolphins surely are one of God's most fascinating creatures.