ABSTRACT
Dolphins and other members of the cetacean order are among the most vocal of the nonhuman mammals and exhibit remarkable development of the sound production and auditory mechanisms. This paper reports on the training of a bottlenosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) to mimic a wide variety of computer-generated sounds and to vocally label displayed real-world objects using some of these same sounds. The description of the training results is followed by a consideration of the implications of the mimicry and labeling ability for cognition in dolphins, particularly in regard to the relation of mimicry to cognitive complexity, and to the potential use of a vocal response mode for two-way communication in an artificial language. Finally, I discuss the implications of a laboratory demonstration of mimicry for studies of the natural communication behavior of dolphins.
