Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff lorn Bolba bom here. Despite the prevailing belief that
Speaker 1: humans dominate the animal kingdom when it comes to smarts,
Speaker 1: we're actually ranked as the third smartest species on the planet,
Speaker 1: according to author Douglas Adams in his series Hitchhiker's Guide
Speaker 1: to the Galaxy. But joking aside, there is something to
Speaker 1: be said for Douglas's idea, at least in terms of
Speaker 1: the species his narrator ranks as second smartest dolphins. His
Speaker 1: stories rank mice as first. We're pretty sure that doesn't
Speaker 1: hold science water. But when you correct for differences in
Speaker 1: body mass, dolphins brains, and the brains of bottlenose dolphins
Speaker 1: in particular are pretty comparable to the brains of humans.
Speaker 1: They even come in second in terms of relative mass,
Speaker 1: above all other species. Their brains also have many similar
Speaker 1: features that are frequently correlated with higher brain functions. Bottlenose
Speaker 1: dolphins likely possessed at a language comprehension skills, making them
Speaker 1: seemingly able to understand simple series of signed gestures, both
Speaker 1: in their semantic and syntactic senses. Bottlenose dolphins can understand
Speaker 1: that generalized words like ball can refer to sets of
Speaker 1: objects with similar characteristics. They could comprehend basic numerical concepts,
Speaker 1: and they're able to understand and react to questions about
Speaker 1: objects outside of their immediate vicinity. They process information received
Speaker 1: both acoustically and visually, allowing them to recognize scenes presented
Speaker 1: on a television screen, something that chimpanzees must be trained
Speaker 1: extensively in order to do. The dolphins can then respond
Speaker 1: to the image with accuracy comparable to human response levels,
Speaker 1: even when the visual cues are delivered abstractly. Dolphins also
Speaker 1: comprehend pointing, again something that chimpanzees typically struggle with. Considering
Speaker 1: that dolphins don't have arms, this ability is perhaps all
Speaker 1: the more razing, although researchers suspect the dolphins experience with
Speaker 1: echolocation prepares them for the concept. Dolphins also seemed to
Speaker 1: demonstrate self awareness by using mirrors to recognize and inspect
Speaker 1: marks placed inconspicuously on their bodies, and they demonstrate a
Speaker 1: perception for and memory of recent activities, exhibited by their
Speaker 1: ability to either repeat or choose new behaviors to perform
Speaker 1: as directed by trainers. Dolphins are excellent mimics both vocally
Speaker 1: and behaviorally. Interestingly, they're able not only to imitate each other,
Speaker 1: but humans as well, meaning that they can map their
Speaker 1: body shapes onto ours using equivalent portions, such as tails
Speaker 1: in the place of legs. Bottlenose dolphins have also been
Speaker 1: known to teach each other new tricks. For example, and
Speaker 1: injured dolphin was taught to tail walk while recuperating in captivity.
Speaker 1: After release, it began passing the technique onto other wild dolphins.
Speaker 1: In another case, dolphins demonstrated their adaptive problems all in
Speaker 1: capabilities by picking up the habit of swimming with sea
Speaker 1: sponges on their snouts, which armored them against the prick
Speaker 1: of spiny fish. A third interesting scenario, albeit back in
Speaker 1: the lab, allowed bottlenose dolphins to choose and I don't
Speaker 1: know option during a difficult test. When the dolphins selected
Speaker 1: that option, they were likely considering their own thought process.
Speaker 1: This indicates the cognitive concept known as meta cognition, which
Speaker 1: some consider an indicator of self awareness and higher consciousness.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jessica Kuthman and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: topics that would surely say so long, and thanks for
Speaker 1: all the fish if they had the opportunity to visit
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com. Brain stuff It's production of iHeart
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.