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I recently asked this question on Biology Stack Exchange but didn’t get any answers.

Russell Arnott, apparently an oceanographer, who currently works as a project manager at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University (UK), wrote in his piece Whales and Waves (2016, p.2):

New research from the DAREWIN Institute postulates that once a whale has obtained an image of an object using sound, it can then send a holographic image of what they saw to another whale using sound. That’s like sending a 3D-picture to your friend using only your face.

Although that article is available on Academia.edu, and Russell Arnott does indeed apparently currently work for Cambridge University, the article is not from a published academic journal. With my meagre understanding of biology I've tried to hunt down articles on this in peer reviewed journals or academic books but have drawn a blank.

Is there any published research which suggests [including in the sense that it postulates it] that whales may be able to send each other three-dimensional images, or in fact, images of any sort at all?

A commenter asks whether if they say "It was shaped like a cube" they have sent an image.

Here's the answer:

If I send you an image you don't need to speak the same language as me to decode it, because it is an image. If I send you a photo of a dog that attacked me you know what the dog looks like. If, instead, I tell you "a dog attacked me" , you may self-instigate (or not) an image of a dog, but you have no idea what it looks like, precisely because I did not send you an image of it

tim
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Araucaria
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    IDK about the DAREWIN Institute but the [Darewin Project](http://www.darewin.org/) page looks as though one person is behind it, because of the link that says "Contact me". It also says "© 2015 click research" but when I google that (as distinct from *click**s** research*) the [webpage](http://clickresearchs.com/) the site has been suspended, whatever that means. It's the same domain as the 'contact me' email link. Note the key word **postulates**. – Weather Vane Jun 19 '22 at 17:04
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    This is not exactly the sort of claim that you might wish. Since the research only postulates it in the claim, we'd only be able to confirm that that's what's being postulated, not that there's a confirmation for that being the reality. – Jiminy Cricket. Jun 19 '22 at 17:41
  • @WeatherVane The DAREWIN institute definitely has more than one person involved, but unfortunately has no exhaustive list of researchers. Some of the research appearing on its 'science' page has bona fide academics as authors (for example [Stan Kuczaj](https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/stanley-stan-kuczaj-ii-1950-2016)). But those links have rotted, if they ever worked and no documents appear to be downloadable. The phrase "research postulates" suggests that there was research that was published which postulated this. But I can't find any or any reference to any. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:06
  • @WeatherVane Regarding my comment "Some of the research appearing on its 'science' page has bona fide academics as authors"<--It's not 100% clear if any of the reseacrh images on that page actually relate to research done with DAREWIN institute involvement. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:16
  • How is this claim supposed to be proved or disproved? Unless you know how to turn the raw data into the final product we won't know what is being sent. – Joe W Jun 19 '22 at 22:22
  • @JoeW Well, my question is not whether it can be or not. It's about whether there is indeed any research which suggests it may be able to be. However, as the idea (as I understand it) is that whales are already known to use sonar-like echo-location to read and "see" their environment and objects in it ['See' in square quotes only because this does not involve light or eyes]. This involves (as I understand it) whales sending out pulses/waves of sound and then the reflected sound returned to the whale forming/ being interpreted as images. [In theory, if you got the right device ... – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:32
  • What is the DAREWIN institute? Where can we find its research? – Weather Vane Jun 19 '22 at 22:34
  • @JoeW ... positioned in the right place you could just use a machine to transform these waves being returned into images]. The idea here, however, is that the whale can project to another whale the signal it received from its own echo-location. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:35
  • @WeatherVane Well, exactly. That's half of the problem. [Here's it's website](http://www.darewin.org/). It has a "science" page, which appears to feature research. But none of the images of the research downloads successfully. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:39
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    No, that isn't a "DAREWIN Institute". The name appears on none of its pages (not even the word 'Institute'), nor is there any credible contact information. To me, it comes across as one person pushing their pet theory. – Weather Vane Jun 19 '22 at 22:42
  • @WeatherVane Ok, well there you go. It is not easy to find any evidence that there is any published research anywhere by any such body which claims this. Which does not mean it does not exist, of course. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:53
  • @WeatherVane ***To me, it comes across as one person pushing their pet theory.*** Well, exactly so, which is why I am asking this question here. I have the same impression, but I'm not sure it's the case. RA does have a modicum of respectability in terms of his role at UoC. – Araucaria Jun 19 '22 at 22:55
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    If you don't know how the raw data is transformed into an image it doesn't matter what you use. You still need to know how to do the transformation and we have no way of communicating with wales to know if our guesses are correct or not. – Joe W Jun 20 '22 at 02:19
  • I'd echo some other comments: so far as I know, there is not really such a thing as "an image", that is guaranteed to be understood properly. In a computer context, the coding/decoding system must be understood or agreed upon. Some evidence for the non-innateness of some representations of objects is in dogs' and cats' reactions (or not) to pictures, and to things seen in mirrors... – paul garrett Jun 20 '22 at 02:29
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    Is the text you've put into quote indent in the question a quote from someone else, or just yourself? Because it doesn't really matter what *you* think constitutes "sending an image"; what matters is what *the researchers being referenced* meant by "sending an image". – IMSoP Jun 20 '22 at 18:55
  • You can actually send a great deal of information just [with your face](https://www.google.com/search?q=expressive+face&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X). Even looking at someone without any expression at all can convey information with just a small movement of the head and/or eyes. – Weather Vane Jun 21 '22 at 12:55
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    If this were true, it's most likely an image would be shared by repeating the exact return audio from the original echolocation, rather than an abstracted representation. This might be a jumping off point for somebody interested and competent in this area of research to find any work done. – Cristobol Polychronopolis Jun 22 '22 at 13:28
  • Just to step back here a bit: Regardless of what 'sending an image' would actually be like, is it an established fact that 'whales' (all??) somehow get a mental 3D "image of an object using sound" ? – bukwyrm Jun 21 '23 at 09:23

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