Using cross-disciplinary knowledge to facilitate advancements in animal communication and science communication research

Abstract

Although humans may have more nuanced reasons for communicatinge.g. to teach or inform, to share or change opinions or attitudesall animals engage in communication with members of their own as well as other species, and there are more similarities than differences between non-human and human communication. All communication systems are composed of the same basic elements and all face comparable challenges. In this Commentary, we explore the extent to which research investigating how non-human animals communicate with each other (animal communication) overlaps in questions and approaches with research focused on how humans communicate with each other. We place a special focus on human communication involving scientific content, i.e. science communication. We begin with a brief review of the fields of animal communication and science communication. We next synthesize literature from each field to examine the roles, impacts and potential interactions of communication system elementssignaling environments, signalers, signal form and receiverson effective communication. We find that research examining animal and human communication, including science communication, often has different emphases. Animal communication research, for example, tends to focus more on the role of the signaling environment through quantification of receiver responses. In contrast, science communication research currently emphasizes relationship building between signalers and receivers, and quantifies aspects of the receiver's psychology. Informed by our cross-disciplinary assessment, we propose potentially productive avenues of future research in both animal communication and science communication.

Acoustic behaviour of male European lobsters (Homarus gammarus) during agonistic encounters

“…The detection or determination of communication amongst individual animals is a fundamental challenge in behavioural ecology (Hebets and Anderson, 2018). Communication is defined most simply as a transfer of information from one or more individuals that is observed to change the behaviour of one or more receiving individuals.…”

A user-centred design framework for disaster risk visualisation

“…Within disaster risk communication this is crucial due to the impact that the social amplification of risk and individual perceptions of risk can have on perceptions, interpretations and actions. Thus, limited consideration of end-users and the context in which a product will be used could hamper one's ability to effectively communicate [57].…”

“…Designers can promote Type 1 thinking through deliberate design that ensures that visuals do not conflict with users pre-existing perceptions, values and knowledge [67,68]. Designers also have to be aware of where and how the visualisation is presented (the 'signalling environment'), as factors such as room colour and the beliefs of people near the end-user can influence how end-users interpret, act on and process a visualisation [57].…”