Contextual and combinatorial structure in sperm whale vocalisations

Pratyusha Sharma, Shane Gero, Roger Payne, David F. Gruber, Daniela Rus (), Antonio Torralba () and Jacob Andreas ()
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Pratyusha Sharma: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shane Gero: Project CETI
Roger Payne: Project CETI
David F. Gruber: Project CETI
Daniela Rus: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Antonio Torralba: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jacob Andreas: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are highly social mammals that communicate using sequences of clicks called codas. While a subset of codas have been shown to encode information about caller identity, almost everything else about the sperm whale communication system, including its structure and information-carrying capacity, remains unknown. We show that codas exhibit contextual and combinatorial structure. First, we report previously undescribed features of codas that are sensitive to the conversational context in which they occur, and systematically controlled and imitated across whales. We call these rubato and ornamentation. Second, we show that codas form a combinatorial coding system in which rubato and ornamentation combine with two context-independent features we call rhythm and tempo to produce a large inventory of distinguishable codas. Sperm whale vocalisations are more expressive and structured than previously believed, and built from a repertoire comprising nearly an order of magnitude more distinguishable codas. These results show context-sensitive and combinatorial vocalisation can appear in organisms with divergent evolutionary lineage and vocal apparatus.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47221-8

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