Adding Authenticity

I've done a couple of things to make the Animal Translation Project more convincing. I wrote a blurb for the video description on YouTube which included references to various papers on USV's and one on how rats hear. Below is the video description.

A quick look at the Animal Translation Project. This video explains the basic concept of the Animal Translation Project. This is the result of a 3 year long intensive study into ultrasonic frequencies and volcalisations of rats. Through meticulous research, observations, and technological breakthroughs we have created a device capable of decoding ultrasonic vocalisations and translating them into a form understandable by humans. We hope that this new technology will allow us to better understand animals which communicate with ultrasonic vocalisations and discover more about their perceptions and knowledge of the world around them.

References:

http://ratbehavior.org/rathearing.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.420110513/abstract

http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0033-2909.128.6.961

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/com/112/1/65/

I also posted the video as a response to a couple of other videos - one of them was a video about the Bowlingual translator, and another was a response to Google's Animal Translation App.

I'm also going to ask my friends to comment on the video to add some authenticity.

Creating the Video

I filmed and edited my video last week. It went easier than expected but I did do a bit of editing because Zelda (the rat in the film) was very keen on exploring and spent a lot of the time I was filming wondering around the table and not doing what I had intended for her to do, but she did in the end so it was fine to edit the film down and compact it from 5 minutes to 2 and a bit. She decided to eat her treat in the box I had placed on the table which meant I got some great shots of her eating in the box. She was very well behaved and I'm glad I chose her to star in my film!

I wrote a small program in C# which was straightforward as it only used a few commands. The program displays the 'translations' in order. I decided to go for the look of a computer terminal to add to the 'sciencey' or 'technical' feel of the film.

Editing the film was fairly straightforward, apart from getting used to the software. I used screencasting software to capture my screen and used the captured footage to display the 'translations', which worked well and seems to be a bit more streamlined than if I was to have had the computer and program running and on the table.

The video / project is now viewable at http://christabriggs.co.uk/animaltranslator/animaltranslator.html

Rats and Thinking

One study states that rats "appear capable of reflecting on what they do and don't know". This type of thinking is known as metacognition - it is a "complex" form of cognition.

It has been found in primates but has not been extensively explored in other mammals.

The following describes the test that rats were given the choice to do to determine their metacognition abilities:

"If they bailed out of the test by poking their noses into one hole, they received a small reward of food pellets. If they opted in by nudging their snouts into another hole, passing the test resulted in a large reward of pellets, while failure yielded nothing.

The test played the rats noises that were either short (between 2 and 3.6 seconds) or long (between 4.4 and 8 seconds). The rodents then had to classify the recent noise as either long or short by pressing one of two levers. This choice was relatively easy if the noise was either very short or very long—for instance, 2 seconds or 8 seconds. However, the decision was far harder if the noise was easily confused as either short or long—for instance, 4.4 seconds."

It appeared that the rats were able to judge if they had enough knowledge to pass the test.

This means that on some level rats have similar knowledge reflection abilities to humans and primates.

Reference:  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/uog-urs030607.php

Another study looked at if rats feel empathy - the understanding of anothers feelings. The test the untrained rats took part in let the rats have the option of freeing a restrained cage mate or eating chocolate. One researcher stated that “It said to us that essentially helping their cage mate is on a par with chocolate. He can hog the entire chocolate stash if he wanted to, and he does not. We were shocked.”

Another researcher said that “These rats are learning because they are motivated by something internal. We’re not showing them how to open the door, they don’t get any previous exposure on opening the door, and it’s hard to open the door. But they keep trying and trying, and it eventually works.”

Reference: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1427

These tests make me think that rats are smarter than we give them credit for. They show that rats are capable of complex cognition and empathy for other rats. Rats can also be trained, not unlike dogs, to complete small tasks for a reward. The public think of rats as pests, and indeed they can be in the wild, but they should also be made aware that rats are intelligent animals who can be great pets and have the capacity for relatively complex thought processes.

Other Attempts at Animal Translation

There have been a couple of other attempts at animal translation. Probably the most notable one is the 'Meowlingual' by Takara Tomy. There is also a counterpart for dogs called the 'Bowlingual'.

The Bowlingual has a slightly different setup, with a hand held LCD display and a wireless microphone which attaches to the dogs collar. The microphone records and transmits the sound of the dog barking to the hand held LCD display, which analyses the bark against a database of barks. The bark is placed into a category such as assertive, happy, and needy, and then the emotion is displayed on the screen as an image.

Google set up an April Fools joke which produced an animal translation application for Android smartphones. The video they produced shows the app working to translate what a pig and a donkey are saying. Google made the video very convincing and in the theme of their other videos.

A link to Google's project can be found here: http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

Deciding on a Background

In part of my video I have the desktop of my laptop visible - so I decided to make a background which shows that I'm not a student but a scientist working on a big project. I spent a bit of time in Photoshop trying to come up with something original. Here are some of the designs I came up with...

The design at the bottom is the one I chose in the end. You can't really see it in the video but I thought it would add a nice touch. My favorite part is the little rat I drew. It seems to make the text seem a bit more 'logo' like. The swirly shapes in the corners are meant to tie in with the Victorian theme of the poster I made a while back.