RESPONSES TO ANOMALOUS GESTURAL SEQUENCES BY A LANGUAGE-TRAINED DOLPHIN - EVIDENCE FOR PROCESSING OF SEMANTIC RELATIONS AND SYNTACTIC INFORMATION

This study examined the responses of a bottlenosed dolphin (Tursiops t runcatus) to ''normal'' (semantically and syntactically correct) seque nces of gestures and to anomalous sequences given within an artificial gestural language highly familiar to the animal. Anomalous sequences violated the semantic rules or syntactic constraints of the language. The dolphin discriminated anomalous from normal sequences in that reje ctions (refusals to respond) occurred to some anomalous sequences but never to normal sequences. Rejections rarely occurred, however, if the anomalous sequence contained a subset of gestures that would comprise a normal unit if joined together. Such units were typically perceived by the dolphin and responded to even if they consisted of gestures th at were not sequentially adjacent. All semantic elements of a sequence were processed by the dolphin in relation to other elements before th e dolphin organized its final response. The results show the importanc e of both semantic properties and semantic relations of the referents of the gestures and of syntactic (ordering) constraints in the dolphin 's interpretations of the anomalies.