This AI Translation Tool Helps You Understand The Language Of Mice

Animals can definitely converse with each other, but so far, humans still have no idea what they say to each other. However, a recent invention of the University of Delaware’s neuroscientists has made it possible for us to decipher one particular animal, the mouse.

The team records the conversations of four mice, two females and two males, five hours at a time. The test chamber is fixed with a camera and eight microphones so that the scientist can monitor their test subject.

After gathering a large amount of data on the mice, the experts then used AI to connect the sounds their test subjects made with animal behaviors know to humans.

The camera and microphones combine to let the scientists know exactly where each sound comes from and assign it to a specific mouse. Next, a learning algorithm comes into play to categorize items. The last step is to use JAABA (short for Janelia Automatic Animal Behavior Annotator) to extract social behaviors.

Joshua Neunuebel, a neuroscientist at the University of Delaware said that their invention was not exactly a translation tool but it works really close to one. The reason they picked mice to be the test subject is that these animals are ideal to study the neural basis of social behavior.

The paper published on Scientific Reports and Nature Neuroscience also sheds light on how social behavior is shaped by communication.

While this is definitely a breakthrough in understanding what animals communicate but we are far from having a tool that can translate the speech of animals to something humans can understand.

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